Day 4 of my holiday gems you may not know: This one's a quintessential "Kenneth" song in that I first learned of it as a cover by Saint Etienne, before realizing it was written by the wonderful Margo Guryan (Sept. 20, 1937 – Nov. 8, 2021) for none other than Franco-American singer, actress, dancer and recording artist Claudine Longet -- aka the erstwhile Mrs. Andy Williams -- who put the "fatale" in femme fatale after she shot and killed her Olympic skier boy toy, Spider Sabich. (Apparently she didn't intend to spend Christmas without him -- but certainly wasn't going to let him spend it with another woman.)
Thanks to her famous ex-husband's deep pockets and a couple prosecutorial errors, Longet was only convicted of negligent homicide, for which spent a paltry 30 days in jail and paid a small fine. (Dominick Dunne later covered the case on his show "Power, Privilege, and Justice" -- natch -- in Season 6, Episode 5, "The Starlet and the Skier.")
"I Don't Intend to Spend Christmas Without You" / "Snow" (A&M 895; 1967)
Spider Sabich at his Red Mountain home in Aspen, where he was shot and killed on March 21, 1976, when he was just 31 years old. Longet said their relationship was wonderful, but her diary the police found begged to differ.
Margo Guryan original demo can be heard HERE. The Saint Etienne version, which was released as a fan club single in 1998 (and later included on the 2010 fan club CD "A Glimpse of Stocking"), can be heard HERE. All three are wonderful, although I must say Claudine's French accent gives it a certain "je ne sais quoi" that's hard to resist!
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