Parodies’ Paradise: 1973 “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”

This Bob Dylan reinvention for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart… one of Dylan’s most popular post-1960s compositions… the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

Buzhard Dakota leans into the grace and soul of it with “Knockin’ on Santa’s Door.” More pretty than funny.

Off the Wagon for the High Holidays

That unhappy refractory period after Christmas drinking is a badge of honor for the young. Jack hurt me, they boast. I can’t function as a human being since I awoke, they quip.

John French Bray soft rocks his “Christmas Hangover” every year to new video making sfx, though he can’t quite figure the lip syncing–which makes me nauseated and headachy. It’s just another season, he seems to say. Routine.

Sounding like the ’60s Gentlemen Jesse and His Men also pledge their morning after pain to the Christ birth in “Christmas Hangover.” It was an honor to be over served.

Announcing that they have the inside of their mouths like an Arab’s underpants (as one might say), Arrogant Worms delivers us unto “Christmas Hangover,” a show tune worthy of church choir-ing. The scenario is horrifying, but the musification merry. It’s irony for the kids ‘cuz–see–they think hangovers are funny.

Drink N.B. Merry: cider

Not much lyricism over pressed old apples, hardly fermented by late December. We’ll settle over up with a bouncy, jazzy gospel piece from Carmela Estella Ross. Her “Apple Cider and Fruit Cake” is one of those token spreads to entice you to her hard driving sermon about Our Lord. You know like stale cookies and burnt coffee at AA meetings.

Jesus Christ! placement

Before we fade out on the Galilean, the Nazarene’s big day, let’s consider the nativity as a place in time. The setting is so much a part of the story, we’ll thumb through a couple Bethlehem songs.

There are so many in the hymn book….

Making a pop album out of world weary traditionals may tax an artist. So palm branches to Chicago for an original song “Bethlehem” that beat boxes the limited band instruments into a holy moly melee.

Third Day pokes the folk bear with strumming and humming throughout “Born in Bethlehem.” This monotonous metronome of music rocks just a wee bit.

But if you’re holding out for a foreign language travelogue, this Hungarian version of “Betlehem, Betlehem” haunts and daunts the human spirit. Eerie. [Although i prefer the studio version from the album Xmas Marks the Spot. Cool kick beat.]

Jesus Christ! overwrought

Do you believe scripture and verse about the night in the barn and the virgin birth?

Some songs lean on the lesson a bit too hard and become a bit… shall we say ‘camp’?

It’s country-time harmonizing like the church choir when The Gatlin Brothers pull every loose thread out of the robe of “Sweet Baby Jesus.” They so mean it!

Kingdom Heirs pun up the praise with “Hay Baby.” Fiddlin’, yet serious  fun!

The Statler Brothers poker face the cheese corn out of “Who Do You Think?” Catch the oompah beat and feel the years pass you by!

The Oak Ridge Boys, earnest emissaries of evangelicalism, head the list of the country crown slingers (George StraitBlake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson, Trisha Yearwood, Alan JacksonKathy Mattea, Lee Ann Womack, and Keith Whitley) who have heralded “There’s a New Kid in Town.” It uses vernacular to revere the Almighty: swoon you must.

Jesus Christ! naming rights

What’s in a name? Well, Adolf Christ probably wouldn’t have worked so well.

Plain folk singer Pete Seeger muses through “Glory to That Newborn King.” It’s close, intimate, and moving.

Leave it to gospel man Kirk Franklin to explain that “Something about the Name Jesus” means everything. (I heard it was a variant of Joshua anyway.) There’ some trouble ending a joyful refrain here though.

Jesus Christ! the place

Vanessa Bell Armstrong funks up the soul for a wonderful testament to the time and place of the birth of the Light of the World, despite the over-tympanification. “The Inn Keeper” is a song to feel deep down into your faith organs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV3HtXyriwU

Jesus Christ! mama time

Mary gets good hallelujah this time of the year. Heck we include her name in seasons’ greetings (misspelled). It’s a chore to create the Creator.

The Advent gets some diva note manipulation with Francesca Battistelli in “Be Born in Me (Mary).” It takes about two minutes of warm up to get to the singing, but the virtuoso is foretold.

Amy Grant labor coaches the old girl with “Almost There.” It’s a lilting uplifting appreciation of motherhood.

Hal Leonard and Shawnee Press Church Choral church “Almost There” up a notch and make a village out of the delivery process. I see the crown!

Santa Jobs: impersonator

Is Santa his real name? Is it Kris? Or Billy?

We may not ever know who this guy is.

Here are some guesses who he could actually be in his spare time.

Of course Bob Rivers has an opinion. He claims, in his best der Bingle, that “There’s a Santa Who Looks a Lot Like Elvis” down at the K-Mart store. Wait, who’s standing in for whom?

Ralph Garman similarly wonders who the real Marshall Bruce Mathers III is in his Kevin and Bean radio parody “The Real Slim Santa.” It’s a shady present no matter how you rap it.

Lee Stranger gets rock and revival with his electric “I Wanted Christ and You Gave Me Santa Claus.” Are you sure they’re two different people? I’ve never seen them together….