Mix up funk, soul, and salsa and you’ve got pop music that inspired dancing like there had never been dancing before. Clear the floor–it’s disco!
Sure it’s all a big joke. So let’s over enunciate and do funny voices. You’ll get the irony! The Superions don’t even add a disco rhythm for “Santa’s Disco.” What kind of joke is that?
Venezuela’s VST’s “Boogie Woogie Christmas Day” also have something lost in translation. It’s not boogie woogie like i know boogie woogie.
BLUE ALERT Guinea Worms goes electric garage to express their surreal disappointment with the “Christmas Disco Pillow.” And compare it to naught naughty body parts.
More on fleek “Disco Christmas” by Grub Dog Mitchell lugubriously spells out holy night fever. It’s not the party you were hoping for (but–tubular bells!).
Let’s put up or step down. Raindolls take the laser tight choreography seriously with “Disco Santa Claus.” Practice your steps and you’ll get into Santa’s bag of cheer, too.
Village People also foretell of that great “Disco Santa/Santa Claus NOEL”–but it’s only a parody of YMCA. Why they gotta?
Oh, you were hoping for disco moves that were COOL! Well, just a bit R+B, just a bit doo wop, “The Christmas Slide” is too cool for you, fool. The Winstons don’t waste time on cliche disco beats, they have a Real Dance here. Step to it or get off the dance floor–they’ll call it.
A number one most excellent disco song for this best of holidays which must always be listened to is “The Rocking Disco Santa Claus” by The Sisterhood. Even grandma and grandpa–uh huh uh huh.
Some of the dance crazes out of the ’60s and beyond commanded their own music. Not too many got their own holiday reiteration.
“Do the Snowman” doesn’t mean what you think. It’s a call to dance. Figure it out. The Hollytones have an update for us.
The Crewcuts need a re-mention of their “Dance Mr. Snowman Dance” here. It’s more of a soft shoe, but–white guy scat!
TOUCH OF BLUE ALERT Completely misunderstanding the dance metaphors Ivor Bigguns goes nicely naughty with “You Can’t Have a Shag with a Snowman.” This modern music hall’s not about dancing any more, or is it?
The Bellrays have a handle on the art of the double entendre with their “All I Wanna Do is Shag for Christmas.” It’s definitely dance this time kids, kookie wookie boo-la-rah-rah.
On the other hand, Santa seeming omnipresent may overload our senses to the point whereas the small minded may discount any of his presence due to his inconceivability.
The Nay-Santers. The dis-en-sant-ed. The incomplete people.
A few songs, then, out of pity, for those deniers who believe Santa’s job is to be nothing.
Sigh.
BLUE ALERT. Nick Helm, comically competing on some singing show, lets his anger out a crack at the revelation that “There Ain’t No Fucking Santa Claus.” Hard rocking, hard feelings.
BLUE ALERT. Driller profanely rages metal against the milk and cookies with their “There’s No Santa Claus.” Even though he doesn’t exist, i think they’d kill him. Jesus, too.
BLUE ALERT. Trick Daddy raps the quandary colorfully with “Ain’t No Santa.” Hrm, maybe this is just a PSA directing kids to believe or end up dead nigas.
Perhaps too drunk to realize what they’re saying The Damned report “There Ain’t No Sanity Clause.” We may have crossed over into more personal garage rock issues.
Let’s stay prog rock and explore the possibility that we’ve merely misplaced the Wise Winterman. Captain Beefheart inspects whether or not “There’s No Santa on the Evening Stage.” It’s the blues.
Jazzy blues also come from Russ Lorenson singing a Barry Manilow number “I Guess there Ain’t No Santa Claus.” I think he’s confusing Santa with basic happiness. …well, that ain’t wrong.
Ron Holden and the Thunderbirds got it figured out. When they ask “Who Sez There Ain’t No Santy Claus?” they mean: who wants to have a horrible, empty life spiraling downward into doom. Rock the doo wop here and BELIEVE.
Let’s get with the 21st and consider the LGBTQ alternatives! Is Santa stuck in a rut, or is he experimental at all?
Daveo Falaveo updates old heater Eartha with his “Santa Baby.” Seems to work–except the lip-sync (what song is that guy singing?!).
Just as predictably, Parody Dummy regales us with ‘funny’ falsettos and “Santa is Queer” (from Wham’s ‘Last Year’). Skip the first minute of pre-music. Or all of it.
Slightly funnier, but blessedly shorter, Larry the Cable Guy brings forth a 15 second “The First Queer Santy Claus” to the tune of ‘First Noel.’ Hee haw.
Wooden Steel belabors the comedy out of “Santa Turned My Boyfriend Gay.” This is presented as an ‘improv’ song. Un-improv-ed, if you ask me. Despite the tacked on gender empowerment, it stoops to poo poo.
Although Kip Addotta does this (it’s on the Big Dr. Demento Xmas Collection), i prefer Standstill’s “I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus” ’cause it’s raw (appropriately punk) and has a Seinfeld reference. (Yes, i like it even more than RuPaul‘s throaty ur-diva bit.)
Much happier to out the old guy is Uncle’s Institution garage chortling “Santa Claus is Gay.” These polar scholars reel from tolerance to name-calling on some German TV show.
Too many of these songs have been repressed, so let me just add a couple more from my own collection (despite their sad association of gay with pedophilia):
The Go-Go Boys are unabashed queer parodists. Off their album Gay Apparel Xmas Songs from somewhere in the ’90s check out “Chickenhawk is Coming to Town.” Fiendishly clever, with a jazzy piano.
Unintentionally uplifting are The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies from a 1998 KROQ Christmas collection with “Butch the Gay Santa Claus.” It’s a party in your pants.
It’s a pretty sad and lame joke that since Santa services kids, it’s not oral or anal–so, thank you Sigmund, it’s sexual.
Not much novelty gold to mine here, but there are lumpy nuggets to chew.
A lagubrious Karl Speegle moans his carol “Santa is a Pedo” as if he’d lost a bet.
Moving on, we may have touched upon Andy Dick’s “Santa’s Yule Log” earlier. It’s so wigged out creepy though that i need to inflict it upon you ‘gain.
Culturcide celebrates Santa’s perversity with an ambiguous age difference between Sinter Klass and the subject(object) of his affection in “Santa Claus was My Lover.” Is the love underaged? or just May/Dec? And hey. kids, we don’t really encourage the plagiarism of karaoke machinery to write your music, but a Michael Jackson song just writes its own parody here.
Best on parody here would have to be the squirmy take on The Kinks’ ‘Lola’ “Santa” by Joel Kopischke. This gets creepier the more genius it gets. I think it’s gay-consensual, but it may also be a crime. Can’t really tell.
Old Dr. Demento discovery Barnes and Barnes present their perverse pop present “I Had Sex with Santa.” This also is not necessarily felonious, but the insoucient joy (“…and then I had a beer!”) and naive frivolity of this act leads one to darkness analogous.
Black can be the worst mood, the scariest night, the killingest plague. Some people don’t like black.
Satan and the Reindeer Butchers kill ‘White Christmas’ with their “A Black Xmas.” For all that’s holy BLUE ALERT!! (for the next six or so)
Amana Reign mixes media to freak you out with their “Black Christmas.” Those boys are so loud! But their lyrics don’t go far enough to make a counter culture point.
Well, then, let’s try some metal: Venom plays “Black Xmas” for the Devil. So that’s not the same Xmas you and i know.
A bit more angry and musically inclined Prison of Blues growls out “Black X-Mas” like they have an important lessen you can pogo to,
Run Moon parleys wicca into goth with her “Black Christmas:” Prison of Blues growls out “Black X-Mas” a piss and moan list of what disappoints her about the holiday. Her rat-a-tat chant gives her song more rah rah than rant rant. Hard to take her cutie-pie anger seriously.
Attempting mood through reverb, Hellfunk ups the melodic quotient with “I’m Dreaming of a Black Xmas.” Black here is absolute night, the absence of any grace or goodness. Get that first guy a lozenge!
Oozing with 1970s BBC snark, High Contrast speechify their “Black Christmas” so you get a sense of working class rap, but Liverpudlian, not Compton. Hitler is mentioned. Subtlety is not considered appropriate.
Bill Collins and MDC play British punk for another “Black Christmas” in which black= no hope, no cheer. Yell if you hate your parents too.
But we can criticize the very tenants of Xianity and still be jolly, can’t we? Try post feminist punker Poly Styrene and her London low down: “Black Christmas.” She’s a damfine musician and her satire is danceable. The attention-deficit video makes Santa into a nightmare.
Most famously, Stan Freberg does a crit of crass commercialism with “Green Chri$tma$” (green for money, not trees, you see) and i don’t feel the need to repeat something so well known here.
“Green” can mean pot–marijuana, did you know? Taurean J hyperventilates their rap with “Green Xmas.” BLUE ALERT for those who listen to lyrics.
Also lefty leaning are the Elf Cottage Elves, caroling about global warming dangers and what you should be doing with their “Green Christmas.”
Anthony McKeon goes radical in Sydney with his “Christmas Song.” It seems to be about going green (the red coke sign behind him is made that other color), but it’s all done through a megaphone. I feel him; i can’t hear him.
Hoping for a Christmas hit, Joe Hammel mines new material: “The Aluminum Christmas Tree” wishes it were green. But then it finds out… that Joe Hammel can’t really sing.
Humor break! mc lars babbles about “Gary the Green-Nosed Reindeer,” a half-brother of Rudolph who is forgotten ‘like President Taft.’ Fortunately Gary does not have a sinus problem, only an overwhelming need to live up to his sibling’s rep. He does. World saved. He has a further screed about the rising temps and CO2 levels with “I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas.” Meh. A cow?
Better humor!? Awesome Xmas parody band The ’60s Invasion takes on the Lemon Pipers’ 1967 ‘Green Tambourine’ with their “Green Christmas Tree.” My brand of hilarity with ornaments.
If you want the rockabilly sound that only means music, bend an ear to the Unkool Hillbillies, Swedes who make you going to sock the hop, and “Green Christmas.” I think they want you to dance dance dance and not be the color blue. Not sure what else.
Also figuratively unspecific is Martin Novales, whose sweet pop “Green Christmas” seems to include trees and mistletoe and avoid the white. Is it rehab, maybe?
Joining the sentiment, calypso in hand, The Great John L. warbles about his “Green Christmas” from the Virgin Islands. No white! Santa got water in his eye!
“Green Christmas” has in fact come to mean a raging lack of traditional features, like snow. Which can result in some Scrooge-like symptoms, or at least the lack of treasuring close, crowded, family-filled places as outlined by Barenaked Ladies in their mall-muzak friendly pop version, and also as delineated by George S. Irving playing the cult favorite Mr. Heat Miser in ‘A Year Without Santa Claus,’ the 1974 Rankin Bass animated TV special (which had a 2008 sequel featuring Heat Miser and Snow Miser [Dick Shawn]). This fabulous Broadway actor (and voice actor: narrator in Underdog cartoons) owned the often imitated song occasionally known as “Green Christmas.”
Is brown a color or an artistic accident? I claim it’s a variant of orange, so here we go:
Strange Italian band Amici di Roland seems to make fun of trash (USA) TV from the 1980s with their mishmash of samples and styles. They are energetic and fun and remind me of fellow novelteer Pete the Elf. So, even though i can’t understand them or tell what’s color-conscious here comes “Brown Christmas.”
As amusing, Ken Jones delivers the toys by UPS proxy, but wants the kids to know “Santa Drives a Big Brown Truck” to the tune of ‘Wonderland.’ Sign here please.
BLUE ALERT – White rapper Wax dubs about your mom and his personal detractors with what he considers a “Brown Christmas.” It seems he means to poo on your joy like he’s a pantsless Santa erupting overhead.
Let’s veer briefly into a more palatable brown and get a bit more suburban white with Dommsn82 improvving on the guitar with his “Chocolate Song (for Christmas).” It’s a brown thing. If that seems too secular, enjoy a taste of choirboy Christopher Trotter singing “Chocolate for Christmas.” Although these foreigners think putting the sweet treet on the tree is okay, i like when they say ‘chocky.’ Well, i have to stop here before i go all foodie on you–we’ll do that another month.
Bottom of the heap here is one of those ‘Rudolph’ redneck rip-offs. A few ‘humorous’ collections to record “Randolph, the Brown-Nosed Reindeer” (Billy Joe Duprix for example) for a lack of momentum-control. Slightly more witty is Mike Sikorsky with “Bradley, the Brown-Nosed Reindeer,” which pulls ahead–not only for superior alliteration–but also for great lines like ‘Unless your name is Rudolph, the scenery never changes.’
Christmas runs the spectrum of blue (Elvis) to white (Bing). And then some.
Colors speak to us in imagery, symbolism, political bent, and all manner of culture. Can it be that novelty Christmas songs come addressed to Roy G. Biv?
Is there a red Christmas?
Betcher ass.
And i don’t just mean the colors of suits and noses and stripey candies…
Although i will allow 12-year-old Zach to sing about his “Red Christmas Sock” because it’s all silly and parody (Toby Keith) and everything i stand for. Toby Tucker does a more down home, dumbed down version, “Red Christmas Cup.” It’s about Christmas (drunken) parties with, you know, those red Solo cups full of trouble (with a brief salute to the troops)!
This is not to be confused with the superior counter-commentary “Red Christmas Cups” about the Starbucks non-religious drink holder outrage. Steve Marshall is a regular new millennial Pete Seger (subtext: not so funny). But let’s get back to Toby Keith: Gestalt being what it is, a million people parodied ‘Red Solo Cup’ with the Josh Feuerstein controversy about Starbucks not emblazoning their merch with Christmas icons like trees (google ‘War on Christmas’ if you must). Trending for the previous week of internet news WCYY goes trolling with its (#5) “The Internet Outrage Song (aka Red Starbucks Cup).” It’s drivetime parody with quips and noises and best-by dates rapidly peeling the relevance off the actual outrage. And then Justin Tyler Moore is coming to town with his (#4) “Red Starbucks Cup.” He’s clever, but his home movies suck, and is he serious about the verisimilitude of poor singing to drive home the point?! And then Ed Button twists the knife with (#3) “Red Starbucks Cup (Red Solo Cup parody).” Reminiscent of Tom Bodett leavin’ a light on for you, he rails like Ranty the red-cupped reader! And then comes the sermon on the mountain roast from Mighty Joe and his (#2) “Red Starbucks Cup” (karaoke backup!). Oooh, the F-word! A nice parody, but too apologetic by half-caff for a cowboy. And then Noah Rivera trashes up the idea with his Ray-Stevens-worthy (#1) “Red Starbucks Cup.” Hee Haw, he makes that conservative reactionaryism look stupid. Nice coffee twerkin’, fool.
Ashley Dudley takes the cup on a percussive detour with “Red Cup Song” (new tune!) letting us know that Jesus likes red. So there. A paler shade of red is Aimee with Starbucks employees helping her out while she reads her “Starbucks Cup Song” (same cup slappin’ tune!) to us. It’s not the same as the others but trills tolerantly multicultural.
Kelly Clarkson brings idols before us with her moody belting of “Wrapped in Red.” Well, i think red is her (killer) mood, but it might be the hue of her oh so fashionable body length sweater.
Also red-minded are Malice in Wonderland. “When Everything’s Red” tells the tale of Christmas love loss. Pretty pouting.
“Red Red Christmas” in the hands of Marcel Caroto and Bilo Lawrence apparently means peace, love, out. Red heart = love?! I’m losing the connex.
And–oddity alert–Scottish politics gets a dressing down with Lady Alba’s “Red Christmas.” Keep Google nearby if you want to ‘get it.’
Alessandro Valenti increases the social commentary with “Red Christmas” (set to the requisite ‘White Christmas’) in which the capitalist system is oppressing the 99% to bloody death.
“Christmas in July” is such a potent figurative phrase, Dear Me turns it into a song about the tortured search for love. Garage groovy. (Christmas somehow never gets mentioned.)
T42 makes fantasyland sport with folk-pop-rock ’80s style sliding in and out of goth, dance floor, and coffee house poetry. Their “Christmas in July” is about the impossible dream of–whatever they’re dreaming about.
Rachel Giordano searches for her key with the amateur song “Christmas in July.” It’s about unattained love (not the Nativity), natch.
The Traveling Suitcase goes backwoods to alt rock “Christmas in July.” They’re feeling the insecurity of existentialism. I think. (Certainly not jolly. Or merry.)
BLUE ALERT – Enjay raps about the fight for his ego to fit in this pity-poor world with “Christmas in July.” (No holiday subjects were harmed in the making of this spew.)
CONTINUED BLUE – Not enough RAP?! Malaki Davinci drops a beat about drinkin’, smokin’, singin’ (not the holidays) in “Christmas in July.”
The Story So Far yells their “Christmas in July” for even more love hopeless love lorn losers. Yell along. The title appears in the lyrics. (But nothing about mistletoe, fruitcake, eggnog, nor peppermint.)
Bib hair country rockers Big Sister rip up some axe to tell you why life without you is like it’s “Christmas in July.” Wotta metaphor!
Slightly less angsty is country strummer Reagan Holyfield moaning over the awful holidays and wishing he had some “Christmas in July.” Cruises, in the Bahamas, soaking up sun on the beach…? Ok.
Brrr–musicians are so lost and alone! Let’s warm up with a little Islander tune from the great Jonathan Coulton (and John Roderick). “Christmas in July” here is about the summer relaxation we wish we could impart to the hectic winter blues. Mai Tais all around!
