Year-round Yuletide oddities
Professor Gall has a Tom Waits ol’ time with “Whiskey Was the Medicine (To Get Me Through Another Christmas Eve Night).”
FuMP delivers unto us Pony Death Ride’s “(It’s a) Tom Waits Christmas.” Just what I wanted!
Porn Orchard does a fun routine honoring these dolorous genre-breakers with “Christmas Sucks.” Some sites argue over whether these are impersonations. Come on.
UPDATE:
I need to shoehorn in something cool i stumbled across:
Pearl Jam frontman Edward Louis Severson III has his own style, here honored by Entorwellian from a truly unique album in the form of: “Garbling Like Eddie Vedder Christmas.” Enjoy!
“What if Eminem Did Jingle Bells” by Bob Rivers. Yeah, this is what it’s all about.
The Upperclassmen have a scrapbooky and sketchy “A Very Bowie Christmas” pretend album with a few songs parodied in the Ziggy Stardust style that will leave you thinking I could do that.
Australian Jeff Duff is worth visiting again with his Bowie-esque “Santa is an Astronaut.” Classic!
Beatles wrecker Yoko Ono may have only been understood by her not-quite-there poet husband John Lennon, but oh well never mind. I don’t get her either.
“Yoko’s Christmas Song” captures some of that oddity in a seasonal mailer to fans.
And Guppy Pie has a sweet little ‘Imagine’ parody purporting to be a Christmas song (mostly about John).
Jaycub Howard goes for the jugular with “A Christmas Gift from Yoko Ono.” It’s the sort of joke that’s funny to inflict on others.
Social Overload goes overboard with the same joke in “A Very Yoko Christmas.” Okay this was a bad idea.
Michael Hall echoes the mid-’60s Fab 4 with “Fab 4 Christmas.”
Cover band The Rubber Band makes a living being The Beatles. They have a Christmas album Xmas! The Beatmas!
Their “Last Christmas” isn’t too bad, opening as it does with the ‘Mr. Postman’ intro. (Probably got the idea from The Ventures’ Christmas album from 1965 featuring “Sleigh Ride” with one of their own numbers morphing into a rocking interp of the moldy traditional. Moderne!)
Let’s feature “A Bairn is Born in Beatlehome” as an epic (minute and a half) tribute to the boys. It’s not terribly Christmassy, but hope you enjoyed the audition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLDI31BBTw
While delving into my fave-aroo phylum of novelty carol (the straight up parody of pop music into holiday humor) ANOTHER extra-nerdy subgenre presented itself: the traditional carol ‘in the style of’ someone famous. Please don’t misunderstand, i know nearly anyone can sing an old Xmas song in the strangled vocal impressions of Arnold, or Gollum, or Yoko Ono et al. But that’s not terribly funny. In fact it’s schtick best consumed impaired. What i’m getting at here is the masterful homage to an iconic style of music, a real treat that blends and bends, fuses and abuses the senses into an elevated state of yule-ocity.
(Honestly, this is a super weird sub-sub-genre and i’m not gonna find much… i’m going to pad out this month with actual parodies, cuz: LUVVUM! So enjoy these few and tip me to more, pls.)
Try this on:
A couple forward-thinking chamber orchestras (at least) have performed What If Baroque Masters composed those seasonal standards we hear annually.
Kjell Magne Robak kills it with”What If Bach Wrote ‘Last Christmas’?” (with a little help from Mozart). Points for acting it out.
Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia play the Caribbean spiritual “The Virign Mary Had a Baby Boy” like Handel (or something… i don’t get the nuances of the 17th – 18th Centuries). Points for oddness.
The Northern Lights Orchestra have a nice album with entitled What if Mozart wrote “White Christmas“? with “Let it Snow,” and–wait for it–“The Chipmunk Song.” This might be better than you think it is.
The mashup dearest to my heart (had it for twenty years) is The Hampton String Quartet’s “Frosty the Snowman” if Mozart had written it. Although, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” ain’t too bad.
Perhaps the greatest icons in our culture take their cue from Christianity. You get how Superman is Christlike and all, right. Perfect for a Merry Christmas song, no?
Michelle Osorio has it boiled down to Ted Talk precision with her “Jor-El: Superman Christmas Carol.” Listen and learn, culture-philes. This is educational, amusing, and pretty.
Perhaps the less said about the J.K. Rowling series the better. It’s unoriginal, plodding, and mean-spirited. But it is the best selling literary series in the history of forever, and she is the only author made billionaire strictly from her creation.
The cottage industry of pop songs dedicated to the fan base is also a bit dull-witted.
The obvious is “Voldemort is Coming to Town.” Bella Luna Wrock has an adorable version of this. Several others recorded their own to a set of venal lyrics that went viral several years ago.
Draco and the Malfoys have a talky bit of comedy song in: “A Very Voldemort Christmas.” The young Tom Riddle here has a stand off with Santa… sorry, fell asleep there a bit. They make up for that one a bit with “All I Want for Christmas” in which Draco himself dictates a holiday wish list to Lord He-who-shall-not-be-named naming names and spells.
For my money the best pop song tribute to Harry Potter is the pop song tribute to Harry Potter fans: Joel Kopischke’s “Have Yourself a Very Harry Potter Christmas.” Take that, fans! (I also wish your parents don’t get killed.)
The original ‘Die Hard’ was set during a holiday office party and as such has become a guy Christmas thing. The protagonist, John McClane, according to our friendly neighborhood Wikipediea, was originally based on the fictional character Detective Joe Leland from Roderick Thorp’s bestselling novel, Nothing Lasts Forever. As portrayed by Bruce Willis, he’s a whiny yet unapologetic, self sabotaging yet unstoppable romantic narcissist. Role model!
Insane Ian & Bonecage retell the tale with the Bing-Bowie ‘Drummer Boy’ backgrounding in “Die Hard Christmas.” Be patient, or be a big fan.
Mike Karschti paints and sings “Merry Christmas, John McClane” with such winning talent that I forgive him his excuse making via vlog after the song.