Drink N.B. Merry: punch

The punch bowl may be the place to start the holiday party, then work up to all the booze we’ve lately consumed. But everyone finds their way back here eventually. This is where you say your goodbyes. So goodbye month of Christmas drinking!

No better place to put that holiday reminder toast: drink to get through these days, but keep count. From our a cappella boys Straight No Chaser, “To Christmas! (The Drinking Song).” (A grand reprise of this category, but does it sound like a sea chanty to anyone else?)

Hee haw styling informs Cledus T. Judd’s country comedy with knee-slapping and sides-holding and eye-rolling in place of line dancing. “Hazel’s Homemade Hallelujah Punch” is a merry tradition purportedly without alcohol, but with the favor of the Lord.

Ancient Order of the Killer Owl mix pop with psychedelia for overwsweet punch with blurring after effects in “The Christmas Punch Song.” It’s far out.

Straight outta witness protection Daniel Brouse also stirs up mind-melting electronica with a bubblegum beat in “Holiday Punch (Christmas Song).” It’s a jeremiad about over drinking, which we’ll explore next month. Guy thinks he’s in outer space (except for the evidence of gravity at the end of the video), i reckon.

Carbon Leaf brings us to a close with “Red Punch/Green Punch.” It’s a bluegrassy family home movie with sweet Old World reflection and a hardy refrain that celebrates all our lives.

Drink N.B. Merry: champagne

Fortify your spirit with evanescence! Get bubbly! Tickle me nose mo’!

Chloe and Phil sing a waltz of light country with “Champagne for Christmas.” Light and lovely, not tripsy at all.

The Fleshtones bring the rock around to garage with their “Champagne for Christmas.” They are much more ‘high,’ but still romantic as all get out.

Drink N.B. Merry: wine, just

Toast Noel! But with what beverage? I’ve been fermenting over this a while, and let’s whine about the adult grape drink not address’d ’til now.

Ziggy Rankin may be metaphorical here, singing about a girl, but riddim is riddim. In “Caroline (Sweetest Wine)” the music moves the way winos believe they do when fortified with sippage.

Promising title–“The Ultimate Last Wine Song 2016,” but it turns out the Norwich tavern The Last Wine Bar is merely musically Xmas card-ing their patrons online. Damn skippy talented song, though.

Canada’s own The Yule Be Sorrys contextualize the consumption with their own update on ‘Holly and Ivy’ with “The Sherry and the Claret” about holiday hollering. Medieval frivolousness.

Let’s mellow way on down the eve with Jason Gleason mush-mouthing “Sleigh Bells and Wine,” where the sleigh awaits, the fire amasses, and the word snow has five syllables. Daddy, oh.

Drink N.B. Merry: wine, mulled

Grown ups of refinement prefer wine to beer, at least as an ostentation. (Wine drinkers say things like: oaky, fruity, earthy; beer drinkers say things like: burp!)

The holiday process of boiling said libation with spices goes back centuries and continents. Glühwein is a favey-fave amongst the Deutshe. So I must include at least a couple not-so-much-mitt-du-English songs like Die Blauen Jung’s happy drunk parody of ‘Jingle Bells’ “Der Glühwein Song,” Thomas Dotterweich’s swinging parody of ‘Rocking Around’ “Der Glühwein Song,” punchxmas’s burbling melancholic “Oh du schöne Weihnachtszeit,” Kalk Stein’s oddly talky children’ rock “Glühwein,” and Sternschuppe’s rad pop “Komm zu mir auf einen Glühwein.” But let’s finish for the language challenged in English: John Stapleton folk rocks “It’s Christmas (Glühwein for the Ladies)” in his rocking chair in his front room (wait, that’s a nervous tic). I do believe he’s judging the alcohol intake here, not like those cheery Germans.

Okay, one more. Miss Behavin’ believes that western music is that stuff from musicals as she celebrates “Glühwein.” It’s a barn dancing promise of more fun.

Back to British. ‘Blurred Lines’ has been mocked with “Mulled Lines,” here by Greg and Chris Smith. Well Robin thick mayn’t be Brit, but he’s classy in that repressed way. An honorable parody.

And now for something completely different. The “Simplee Mulled Wine Mix Song” is advertisement for a product you problee never heard of. But it’s catchy bluegrass carousing.

Drink N.B. Merry: beer3

Beer at Christmas has a downside: forgotten presents, uninhibited opinions, vomit in the hanging fern….

Angry songs usually just lean into punk, like Fear’s “Another Christmas Beer.” Few actual accidents of mischance trouble this number, though.

And Bah and the Humbugs’ “Christmas Beer” extols the magical powers of the brewski, but the suburban-dad punk sounds a bit tetchy.

Sunny Sweeney changes the tempo with sloshy honky tonk in her “1 More Christmas Beer.” The stink of life’s limitations and regret swings and sways like a denizen of the tavern two past cut-off.

Banging the guitar with heartfelt country David Hutchins wails (more coffee house than dive bar) “I’ll be Drinking for Christmas.” Mostly just about keeping the glass full. But we all know he’s a beer guy with poor decision-making skills.

Slightly more upbeat country with a far more hopeless message is “Christmas in a Beer Joint” by Red State Update. The boys are just having fun, but can we laugh at their depiction of rural pain? Me first.

Let country do what it does best, reflect on the broken life of the lower class. And wink. Gord Bamford tells the old tale of family tragedy in “Daddy’s Beer.” Follow the stages of grief through this toe tapper.

Drink N.B. Merry: beer2

Some beer songs are in anticipation, or within the first couple rounds: upbeat.

Friday Night Music Club has a rousing light-punk (same anger, less cacophony) number in “The Christmas Beer Song.” It’s all fun and games until the next round.

Thorsø All-Stars from Thorsø, Denmark have posited a polite cowboy party with “Country Christmas Beer.” It’s their first song in English and they’ve worked hard musically to represent our Wild West bad manners.

Another big party is delineated by The Irish Rovers in their “Christmas in the Ale House.” What a great Celtic gathering.

Less glowingly glorious, The Bastions get a bit loud and naughty with “Beer, Jugs, & Bratwurst.” Oompah is a bit like the I-need-to-fit-a-toilet-soon rhythm, ist es nicht so?

Referencing beer but almost cheerfully anti-beer is the Christmas remix of Trailer Choir’s ‘Rockng the Beer Gut’ into “Rocking the Beer Gut (Holly Day  Version)” wherein Santa claims he’s not fulla suds. Nice rollickin’ country-fried humor.

Even bad choices under the influences of beer seem fun. In re: “Christmas with Beer Theme Song” by Christmas with Beer makes the failures in life tolerable, amusing even. Thanks!

Drink N.B. Merry: beer1

Taking a sudsy breather from the hard stuff, beer (and other grainy fortified brews) may apply what the elves in Santa’s backroom call a buzz: just enough of an edge to make musicians think they’re funny. So make way for a barful of parodies.

Brian of the WGAR morning show (Cleveland’s Great Lakes ale) “Christmas Ale Song.” Give it a 5.

Bubba Claus “Frosty the Beer Mug.” A 6.

Nick Stockwell “What’s This? A Beer!” An 8, no a 7 because it’s too long/not Christmas.

Jim News, Mike Polk (Cleveland’s Great Lakes ale) “Oh Christmas Ale.” Between a 7 and an 8.

Abe Smith, Sean White “It’s the Most Wonderful Time to Drink Beer.” A 7.

The better impression (think it’s Bob Farley): 8.

Uncredited ‘Rudolph’ version: another 8.

Martian Patriots “Beer Christmas Song.” 8+. Shameless self promotion wins.

Drink N.B. Merry: whiskey3

Now for the dark days of the chronic carouser. We’ll spend another month on sheer drunkenness, but for now let’s blame the potent potable–whiskey–for the way things turnt out.

Shawn Brewster kicks off the childhood regret of missing family fun from this time of year. His lugubrious jazz slobberfest “Christmas and Whiskey” whines about being old and cold, but it’s hard to look away.

Maudlin country from JJ Voss also bewails his outcast state in “Whiskey, the Tree, and Me.” Does the drinking help you forget, or does it help you dwell on it? Dude, get a present.

Not quite as weepy, Don Hackney resents California from his down home country soul in “Whiskey Lights of Christmas.” Poor old Doris.

Professor Gall admits “Whiskey was the Medicine (To Get Me Through Another Christmas Eve Night).” It’s a circusy caterwaul in the manner of Tom Waits. Swirly, Shirley.

Adding to the minimalist list of happy holiday helpings, Ray Galindo croaks about “Hot Dogs and Whiskey for Christmas.” It doesn’t help his bluesy needs.

John Bell keeps his blues serious, but Xmases his “Ribs N Whiskey” standard with Christmas lyrics. His weird falsetto and blind flailings make a misery out of this parody, but that’s as it should be.

Garage punk from Jonny Manak rages that “Santa Stole My Whiskey.” It purports to psychedelia, but it’s just prankish boys.

Just as angry, The Fisticuffs punk-mouth that “Santa Smells Like Whiskey.” It’s low class trash, but isn’t that what we pogo to? Oi!

Enough! No way! Irish metal from The Kringles complains there’s “No Whiskey in Heaven (No Ice in Hell).” It’s a tip of the tam to Elvis Costello with a salute to Zappa, but i mean that in the best way.

Drink N.B. Merry: whiskey2

Some whiskey Christmas songs are a mixed bag. Fun to hear, sad to listen to. Great melodious fun. Woebegone lyrics.

Tipsy virtuosi Son of Fathers have a seesaw bit of silliness with “Whiskey Christmas.” You never get anyway with the song, but oh well.

John Gregorio as ‘Ray Church’ (from a show entitled ‘Chaos & Candy: Chicken in the Snow’) has a truck driving country rock blasphemy also called “Whiskey Christmas.” The devil proposes a drinking contest in a local dive on Christmas while Jesus was in the mens’ room… hijinks ensue.

Happy drinking sounding like a Steven Martin improv rollicks in from lounge lizard Jesse Thomas Brown with “Merry Christmas, Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.” It’s a family brawl, but all in fun–except for all of them.

Our Country tinkles the ivories with some old fashioned song writing in yet another “Whiskey Christmas.” Half gospel, half musical, half ragtime, these boys recommend whiskey in your Swiss Miss, but sheepishly. (2 1/2 minutes in is their Kickstarter commercial.)

The most upbeat, most degrading melange of holiday whiskey-ing come from Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Their “Whiskey Christmas” is a jig and a half about the puking, hating, stinking effects of partaking. Wee ones scream curses.

Temperance challenges Barleyjuice in a cool retro rock “Whiskey for Christmas,” which while Celtic hearkens to ’60s folk rock. Clever fellows.

Drink N.B. Merry: whiskey1

Hard drinking largely features whiskey in all its incarnations: Jim, Johnny, Jack. Whether corn squeezins, white lightning, moonshine, mountain dew… it’s the water of life, the devil’s brew, the little brown jug.

What better time than Christmastime?

Some songs are a bit of fun, celebrating responsibly, taking the edge off.

Miss Mini calls her “Corn Whiskey in the Egg Nog” southern soul. Sounds like Motown regardless where you play it. The party in her song does get a bit reckless, but her sassy side sells it, yassir.

Proper southern slide guitars from Dan Rodriguez. His honky tonkin’ “All I Want for Christmas is Whiskey” is a song of sorrow and regret, but his rhymes are crispy and his beat is upbeat. Fun.

A more positive message with a growling folk country accent drawls out of The Sudden Passion who has done all his shopping for Christmas on aisle 13. “Whiskey for Everyone (This Christmas)” simplifies the worry of the holidays and isn’t that a good thing?

Whiskey Rodeo plays parody with “Deck the Halls with Beer and Whiskey.” It’s hard rock with angry trappings and self image issues. And the humor is boys-being-boys pedestrian. Wooo! But, okay that’s it.

Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, Three Day Threshold & Summer Villains wish you “A Very Whiskey New Year.” Despite their resolutions, they’re toasting uproariously and slide in and out of key of their big, loud folk singalong to convince you of their intentions.

Fusing American country rock with British Invasion, Minus 5 makes merry with the blurry in their “Your Christmas Whiskey.” Not a hangover song at all.