2007 Song of the Day #1 – Holiday (Madonna)

In the midst of all of my NaBloPoMoing in November I was reminded of how fun it can be to turn on my mixer and record a song – especially something I’ve never played before. In fact, my favorite results of the month were all songs I barely rehearsed and slammed through in a single take (Other Plans, Under My Skin, & Dilate).

In the spirit of that, in 2007 I’m going to slam through as many songs as I can, posting the results as Songs of the Day for your listening pleasure.

In keeping with my last post, I make no promises that this will occur every day, or even once a week. I’d just like to fill out my catalog of recordings, and to offer you more of me to hear. I plan to focus on some specific artists and albums, but past that I have no idea where this is headed. Some songs might be recognizable hits, while others will be b-sides or originals. Many could be forgettable, but a few could be gems.

My first effort is a cover of Madonna’s “Holiday.” You can read some background about “Holiday” at Mad Eyes, which is the only Madonna site I found with a complete itemized list of every one of her songs (both published and unreleased). It’s pretty awesome.

If you want chords, performance notes, and lyrics for “Holiday, keep reading.

Like a lot of major pop hits, “Holiday” has a very simplistic repeating chord pattern:
Gmaj7 A A Bm, Gmaj7 A F#m G

Madonna has a whole band behind her to keep things interesting (or bank of synthesizers, as the case may be), but a singer-songwriter just has their guitar or piano. That means you need to focus on different rhythms and voicings to keep your rendition from getting too boring.

After a little bit of jamming I found three basic and distinct ways to play the chord progression:

High: xx(12(11(12(xx, xxx(9(10(x, xx(11(9(10(x, xxx(11(12(x,
xx(12(11(12(xx, xxx(9(10(x,xxx67x, xxx78x

Open: 3×0032, x02220, x02220, x24432,
3×0032, x02220, 244222, 355433

Barre Chords: 355xxx, 577xxx, 577xxx, 799xxx,
355xxx, 577xxx, 244xxx, 355xxx

With more planning you can easily locate some other places to voice the chords, making your own version even more unique!

“Holiday” was written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Steven. It uses a lot of repeated refrains; for my cover I trimmed it down to the following:

If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be so nice

Everybody spread the word, we’re gonna have a celebration
All across the world, in every nation
It’s time for the good times, forget about the bad times, oh yeah
One day to come together to release the pressure
We need a holiday

If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate, c’mon let’s celebrate)
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be so nice

You can turn this world around, and bring back all of those happy days
Put your trouble down, it’s time to celebrate
Let love shine, and we will find
A way to come together, and make things better
We need a holiday

Holiday, celebrate
Holiday, celebrate

If you are still having trouble playing a song even after listening to my performance please leave a comment.