The Playlist: 10 Songs for Bell Ringing

Ring in the end of the year with some bells! Let these 10 ring-ting-tingling tunes inspire you to get your jingle on.

1 / 10
For Doorbells

For Doorbells

“My Doorbell” by White Stripes (Click Here to Listen)

A lusty piano-and-drums lurch with lyrics-“I’m thinking about my doorbell / When ya gonna ring it? / When ya gonna ring it?”-that can be as literal or euphemistic as you’d like them to be.

2 / 10
For Dumbbells

For Dumbbells

“Carry That Weight” by The Beatles (Click Here to Listen)

Literalists may point out that this number from the end of Abbey Road is about the dissolution of a relationship, but why not let it be the motivational anthem to enhance your iron-pumping gym experience?

3 / 10
For Cowbells

For Cowbells

“Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult (Click Here to Listen)

The inspiration for Saturday Night Live’s now-classic parody sketch featuring Will Ferrell as an overzealous cowbell virtuoso, this enduring jam contains more rings than your average rock song.

4 / 10
For Sleigh Bells

For Sleigh Bells

“Rill Rill” by Sleigh Bells (Click here to listen)

It may not be traditional reindeer fare, but this shimmery confection from the Brooklyn noise-pop duo adds heat to any seasonal gathering. If you’re looking for Santa’s-sleigh verisimilitude, take comfort in the fact the original song title was “Ring Ring.”

5 / 10
For Belle River

For Belle River

“The Bootleg Saint” by Sam Roberts (Click Here to Listen)

Way back when, the town of Belle River, Ontario, was a nexus for bootleggers hoping to smuggle booze into the United States. In Roberts’s ode, a shifty character who “walks the line / Between an everyman hero and a waste of time,” would have fit in well with those Prohibition-era characters.

6 / 10
For Southern Belles

For Southern Belles

“I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross (Click Here to Listen)

Is it strange to associate a song closely tied to glammed-up disco culture with the quaint custom of cotillions? The fact remains that the sentiment behind the song-a confident announcement to the world that you’ve come into your own-is something any good deb should hear.

7 / 10
For Bell Curves

For Bell Curves

“Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls (Click Here to Listen)

Regardless of the occasion, the venerated folk duo’s signature tune is always worth a listen. Though Emily Saliers never specifies whether the “doctor of philosophy” she visited graded her performance on a curve, “closer to fine” feels like a passing grade to us.

8 / 10
For Bonne Bells

For Bonne Bells

“Lip Gloss” by Lil Mama (Click Here to Listen)

If you came of age in the ’70s, ’80s or ’90s, you’re likely familiar with Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, those drugstore essentials that came in flavours like Dr. Pepper and bubble gum. Lil Mama’s 21st-century homage to this cosmetic subclass is entirely appropriate.

9 / 10
For Babybels

For Babybels

“Cheese” by The Moldy Peaches (Click Here to Listen)

Few processed snacks are as self-contained as Babybels, those little wheels whose red wax coating can be peeled back to expose a dairy-rific centre. The gist of this novelty ditty by jangly duo The Moldy Peaches is fairly straightforward: “Where the cheese be? / Where be my cheese? / Inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside, inside.” If the dairy product fits…

10 / 10
For Belles de Jour

For Belles de Jour

“Double Feature” by Camera Obscura (Click Here to Listen)

The inimitable Catherine Deneuve starred as the beautiful, bored housewife gone rogue in Luis Buñuel’s 1967 drama Belle de Jour. One imagines the flick was one of the two Traceyanne Campbell alludes to in this dreamy reverie by her group Camera Obscura: “We’ll see a Catherine Deneuve double feature / And our lives will fade as in darkness we will bathe.”

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