The Christmas songs of our founding fathers are too archaeological to consider (church hymns)–good Christmas carols don’t come around for another century after that.
But those second banana has-beens Paul Revere and the Raiders offer a light psychedelic commentary on Vietnam by singing about Revolutionary wartime conditions in “Valley Forge” (even Doonesbury saw that connection despite the jungle/snowbank dichotomy). Not much of a Yule tune, but it’s off their cool cool cool ’67 album: A Christmas Present… and Past. Good stuff, groovesters.
By my Ziggy calendar it’s January… and no one gives a rat’s hat about the Yule after this date.
So let’s get weird.
This month we celebrate Americana (Norte-style). Not many novelty Christmas songs scream USA Xmas, but some significant ones do, so we’ll go slow and see where we get to (we’ll be mentioning the boys overseas quite a bit). This is NOT about the individual states (Ben Dare, Don Datt), or–if we can help it– about the regions or coasts. This is about bringing us all together as one people. like science fiction is supposed to do, like Teddy Roosevelt wanted, like YOU desire in your heart.
So let’s begin with the first peoples, the founders of our land.
Jana Sampson is our usual ambassador to traditional carols in aboriginal languages, but let’s give Laura Burnouf a shot in Cree with “Little Drummer Boy.” It’s artistically folky without the hint of a drum, deerskin or otherwise.
The band Northern Cree gets a bit more humorous and self serving with their unfortunate “NDN 12 Days of Christmas.” There isn’t much to listen to when i reference the reprehensible twelve.
Oldhands makes it all real with “Stuck in the Smoke Hole of Our Tipi.” Swing and sway with the chanting and the culture clash. (They pawn our gifts?) (Maybe they’re Pawnees? Larf!)
