Dick Clark in Times Square, New Year’s Eve 1988.
New Year’s Eve has always, for me, been the worst of holidays. I don’t know which scenario is worse, spending way too much money to slowly realize that this is just an average night out, or staying home and imagining all the fun that revelers are having while you wait for Dick Clark to arrive in Times Square.
The best New Year’s Eve celebrations I have had are with friends. A gathering of twenty or thirty people, some beer and wine, and the odd pair of funny glasses. Oh, and music.
New Year’s Eve doesn’t have the same grand musical tradition that Christmas does, but there are New Year’s Eve songs. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that RTH is throwing a party tomorrow night. What’s on the playlist?
If you know about the RTH Christmas, you know the drill: nominate a song. Once it is seconded by another RTHer it is in. We continue until we have fifteen songs.
To kick it off, I nominate Dick Haymes and Les Paul’s version of What Are You Doing New Years Eve?
Used to be that we had parties where everyone turned in their car keys for the night upon arrival – it was understood that you crashed at the host’s home overnight. This way no one drives away late at night damaged. After all, New Year’s Eve is amateur night when it comes to partying and there are lots of idiots out there. Nowadays I tend to stay home on New Years Eve.
As for a song, how about Neil Sedaka with “Calendar Girl”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUlOyj9F5gM
It’s not “Eve,” so taste aside I hope U2’s “New Year’s Day” doesn’t qualify. That sing is OK. This is tough…let me think some more.
Is Kool and the Gang’s “Celebrate” a NYE song, or does it simply fit?
If we are sticking strictly to New Years Eve songs, then I nominate George Harrison’s “Ding Dong”. It’s not because I necessarily love the song, though, but it fits.
Oh, here’s the url for those who want to listen…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJR44H48POo
My wife thought of a good one, specifically for a certain new year: “1999.”
Second 1999.
The Zombies, “This will be our year,” of course!
Happy New Year!
The last track on Tom Waits’ last album, Bad As Me, is all about a very Waitesque NYE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyCTpzQRK0E
There are a host of movies set on New Year’s Eve, and the Hall can check out some of those soundtracks. I’m partial to “You Send Me” by Aretha Franklin, from my perennial guilty pleasure, “The Holiday.”
However, the song I was originally thinking of (and was used as an end-of-scene musical reflection of the end of a season) was “Tomorrow Never Knows” by The Beatles. It signifies an ending and a new beginning, and if your New Year’s Eve includes lazing around partaking in hallucinogens, this could be the song for you.