All I Want For Christmas
All I Want For Christmas
by Shannon Callahan & The Blackbird
A few years ago my dear friend Shannon brought a Christmas song to me which she was working on and asked if we could finish it up before the holidays. I'm a great fan of Shannon, her singing and songwriting, so I gladly listened to what she brought, and we decided to go ahead.
We both felt tired by the commerciality of Christmas and wanted to write something which brought forth the spirit of the holiday without the hustle, bustle and buying pressure, something that celebrated the important aspects of the holiday and not the superficial ones.
So we went to work with this goal in mind, and after a few meetings the song was in good shape. We performed it with our friend Therese Pitt at the annual Christmas Party my wife-to-be Anna and I have every year. It was well received, and I felt it really did capture the spirit we sought and expressed what we hoped it would about the holiday.
Because of this, I felt we should handle the song with full respect so we went ahead and recorded it and did a digital release. But as often happens in my world, the song was not quite finished with me. In the following year I didn’t feel complete with the song, and it seemed to be calling for a visual presentation. Since our son Arseny is a talented videographer, I thought it would be a good idea, very much in the spirit of the holiday, to make a family project out of it.
The team was great, Arseny was lord master of the project wearing many hats: creative producer, director, lighting designer, camera, storyboarding... He and his colleague Eypee did all the video work together, and Eypee did the film editing. Anna was in charge of gathering all the bits & bobs, props & food and also found us a wonderful location for the shoot. Arseny and I shaped the story. We decided to base it on our actual annual Christmas Parties, so we invited many of the same people, friends and colleagues who volunteered their time and talents. It was a memorable experience for all involved. Some of their family members joined, including Shannon’s in-laws with her baby. What she didn’t know at this point was that she was pregnant with her second child as we were filming!
I hope you enjoy the song and spend a few minutes with the idea and spirit of it this holiday season!
A warm, heartfelt Christmas Song (mp3 format)
Creative Producer, Director, Lights, Camera: Arseny Knaifel * Camera, Editor: Eypee Kaamino
All I Want For Christmas
by Shannon Callahan & the Blackbird
All I want for Christmas, All I want for Christmas,
All I want for Christmas is love
You can keep your fancy packages, things, I got enough
All I want for Christmas is love sweet love
And if I had a second wish, it'd be for you and me
To live to see peace on earth from sea to shining sea
Every mother's child, and every shade of skin
And every land, let the love shine in
All I want for Christmas, All I want for Christmas,
All I want for Christmas is love
You can keep your fancy packages, things, I got enough
All I want for Christmas is love sweet love
Take away the blindness that makes it hard to see
That what I do to others will surely be done to me
If you do me wrong, let me rise above
And find a way to answer you with love sweet love
All I want for Christmas, All I want for Christmas,
All I want for Christmas is love
You can keep your fancy packages, things, I got enough
All I want for Christmas is love sweet love
Give me love, sweet love
Give me love, sweet love
All I want for Christmas, All I want for Christmas,
All I want for Christmas is love
You can keep your fancy packages, things, I got enough
All I want for Christmas is love sweet love
Love sweet love, love sweet love, sweet love
Shannon Callahan: Voice * The Blackbird: Guitar, Dobro & Voice * Therese Pitt : Voice
Recording, Mix and Mastering: Tom Lynn
The instrumental solo is performed on a Dobro, also known as a Resonator Guitar, played with a brass slide. I used a Lakewood Acoustic guitar for the recording, and my Ovation 1984 Collectors Edition for the video, because it looks great. It’s the same edition Jimmy Page used on his “No Quarter” MTV event with Robert Plant and amazing middle eastern musicians to revisit the music of his old band Led Zeppelin.
Special Thanks:
Shannon Callahan, Anna Knaifel, Leah Ross, Tansie Mayer III, Nancy Eschler, Milena Sophia Hagedorn, Paul Keeves, Bettina Meske, Karen Probst, Andrea Schlotterbeck, Ruben (The Star Child), Arseny Knaifel, Eypee Kaamiňo, Toby York & I LIKE VISUALS