Year-round Yuletide oddities
What’s a spurned woman to do? Mrs. Claus doesn’t get her jollies on the night that counts and that itch won’t go away.
“Mrs. Claus is Steppin’ Out” is that sultry country dance number you might expect given the subject. Tina Mitchell Wilkins goes whole hog with the woo-hoos.
More suggestive country, now with more sugary sweetness, from Jane Sheldon. “One for Mrs. Claus” is pretty pop about the modern-day lady who goes out drinking while her husband is working. You go Teri Hatcher, i mean girl.
Families are different outside the pollution of urban sprawl. Time slows, flavors burst, eye contact is made (briefly). At Christmas families matter out in the hills and backwoods.
Cities can intrude even out there. An encore from Walter Brennan who chats out “Just Three Letters for Christmas.” This is best paired with Red Peters’s “You Ain’t Gettin’ Sh*t for Christmas.” Bad families!
Ginger Minj (feat. Carnie Wilson) holla onto the good ol’ fashioned “Down Home Country Christmas.” ‘It ain’t a country Christmas ’til someone calls the cops,’ they pop croon. Got it? This might be paired with Lauren Mayer’s “Good Old down Home Country Chanukah.” Yee oi.
Barry Ward gets quietly oversentimental with strong “Farm Family” values for the holidays. Folksy country that might make you stand and put a hand over your heart.
Overdoes it also from Barbara Mandrell and “Christmas at Our House,” a sappy pop country whiner (not improved by a tinkly Lorrie Morgan, nay nay). I do wish your last scraps of memories to be like these candy coated impressions.
Not that you need any more excuses, but when the family shows up with baggage and bottles one solution presents itself: two parts bourbon, one vermouth.
Happy families drink as well. Brian Tiernan offers up “A Christmas Toast” with banjo pop playfulness. Cheers.
Welcome back Kristian Bush who’s still “Thinking About Drinking for Christmas.” Honky tonk slurry fun at the intolerable family’s expense..
Big and Rich list out the problem/drink answers when they get drunk, drunk, “Drunk on Christmas.” It’s all settled with a bouncy country pop tune. (Jimmy Fallon covers this with one of these guys. More hooting.)
Can’t play games ’til all the family members up. Let’s play!
Bad families have their own button-pushing to get done, certainly. I hesitate to mention Robert Earl Keene‘s big holiday hit as it strikes me as an accepted number in the Christmas canon. So, i’ll turn on Julie Sobule’s cover as it eases off the beatbox rhythm and adds just a touch of heart (and not just ‘cuz it’s HER brand of ciggies). “Merry Christmas from the Family” to alt-country your novelty needs (and the next to happy ending).
Beginners hearken to Banyan Global Learning, whose “Family Christmas Song” will teach you customs and the English language too. Kids pop.
Anita Wilson sashays some middle of the road soul with “Family Christmas.” This is some tribute to heart-warming fun, y’all. And, i suspect, karaoke will be proposed.
Naomi Hooley pounds on the ol’ pianner with some upbeat churchy country assigning roles in her “Family Christmas.” Her loving managing might make this the best ever holiday. I’m in.
We’ve covered the casserole dishes repeatedly over the years, but food = family, unless you’re some heathen McDonalds-ite for Xmas.
Yumminess from Bing Crosby reprising “Christmas Dinner, Country Style.” Big band country curdled with square dance steps. But it’s all about family.
Encore for “Aunt Clara’s Christmas Casserole” a Ray Stevens/Andy Griffith har-de-har country comic mashup from Dann & Yeaney. Clean your plate!
Most inappropriate is the returning hit, “Grandma’s Christmas Dinner.” It’s folk/bluegrass black comedy from Paul and Storm. Be ready to run.
Dr. Duke Tomatoe offers a new dish with “Christmas at Grandma’s”–another comic take on emetic cuisine. Pop easy listening fun about family torture.
It’s been a while since the disunion. How’s it going?
M J Moore matter-of-factly (tone-deafly) offers “I’ll Miss You at Christmas.” Someone take that drum machine away from that cancer-throated crooner!
John Eddie just doesn’t want to talk about it. Country pop crooning “Another Lonely Christmas” is all about just getting through it–maybe next year will be better.
Misty Boyce toasts “Merry Christmas, My Love” from far away. A gentle country twanger, almost cowboy with echoic solitude and strength.
That inbetween space ‘twixt light and dark contains the brokenhearted. During dark times (solstice, frinstance) the mopey becomes the dweller in the cellar for as long as–say a song.
Bobby Vee’s 1962 swingin’, swayin’ “A Not So Very Merry Christmas” blues-rocks the woes melodically with long-drawn out chorus notes. Can you dig it?
Luther Vandross makes an annual fool of himself with the R+B complaint “Every Year, Every Christmas.” He won’t give you up, no matter he can’t find you. You had to be there.
Mariah Carey is all over the octave plaintively crying out “Miss You Most (At Christmas Time)“! Pop ear burster.
Taylor Swift shows the talent you’d expect with “Christmasses When You were Mine,” a gentle trembling country piece of poetry about living in the past.
Metamusic fun!
Dr. BLT sings about himself (wishfully) with the wistful romantic fast folk “Songwriting Santa.” Or maybe it’s moving too fast. He croons to woo. A bit later he writes to Baby Jesus that “I’ll be Writing You a Christmas Song.” Heartfelt folk with kid backup.
Matt Roach can only do one thing for you (it’s writing a song). “Christmas Morning Eyes” is an alt stumble through the love-you/no-present-though. Near miss.
Amateur hour from The Paulson Family Band. “We Wrote You This Song for Christmas” really seems like a peek into a private family+friends exchange. Their earnest folking is nearly enchanting.
Your-gift-is-my-song rings out more successfully from Jason Lancaster with the throat shredding piano recital power ballad “All I Can Give You.” Goosies!
Red State Update has decided to eschew all carols in favor of their “Christmas Tambourine.” Hard rock (i think).
Also limited, Do You Hear What I Hear (feat. Simply Weasels) asks “Santa Tune My Guitar” so the songs can get going, you know, euphonically like.
Wendell Ferguson picks the old style country rock while sheepishly admitting to “Workin’ in a One-Hit Wonderland.” Slight BLUE ALERT, but cuddly cute.
Terrible, bad, heinous songs may briefly be considered. The inconceivably Eurotrashy Günther serenades you with ‘Ding dong! It’s a Christmas song!’ in his “Christmas Song.” Awful, baby, simply ’70s disco awful.
Greg and Brian’s “The Worst Christmas Carol” is jk cheap funk with childish sentiment. Unfortunate, more than sick-making.
Geraldine McQueen crosses us back over to the weird (ambiguously sexually slanted enough for us to make up our own aesthetic) with the show tune “Once Upon a Christmas Song.” Come along with me: love, hate, love hate… (over and over again).
Time for the full frontal irony: Tony Thaxton drops the humor bomb in “Another Generic Christmas Song,” with seasonal pop underpinnings. Got me!
Pucker up! Mistletoe songs are a dime a berry, but most are olden. Fewer newer.
And some just mention the weed. Tenth Avenue North’s “Mistletoe (The Christmas Sweater Song)” is about love, sweaters, waiting… and–maybe one kiss at the end. Alt makes it sound worth it, though.
Others play childish. Well, a childrens’ play. Okay, a movie about a Nativity pageant in a school. You got me, the SECOND SEQUEL of ‘Nativity’ (‘Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey’) features “The Mistletoe Song,” a romp about embarrassing your peers. (There’s a fourth film, as well as an actual stage musical.) (But it’s all British so it won’t impact you so much.)
Or you might introduce the concept with elementary rock’n’roll by way of ‘Tannenbaum.’ Seriously. Joe Dowell plays kooky for the teens with “A Kiss for Christmas.” In German!
Others shorthand the growth to springboard parody. The Withers get textbook with their “Mistletoe.” You might learn something.
Or pucker up the funniness of mwah mwah mwah! “Christmas Kisses” from Red State Update may not namedrop mistletoe, but it has to get a spin here. Odd pop.
Or cut directly to the dirty deed–“Top Under the Mistletoe” from lil aaron just wants some. Direct light rap.
Then there’s the whole hog. Boot scootin’ pop country (with narrative bridges from Sally Struthers) finales the Lifetime Christmas movie ‘Christmas Harmony’ about a big-city girl who… who cares what it’s about? It’s formulaic! The song “Everything’s Gone Missing But the Mistletoe” chronicled by Kelley Jakle and Adam Mayfield reassures the audience that all you need is love, and basic cable.
My collection of Xmas (about USA) songs was a mishmash of odd references. Couldn’t tell if i was saluting or kneeling. (Aren’t those both reverential?)
Take Brian Kinder’s “Fruitcake” song that invokes the founding fathers. What in the name of children’s music is that?
The Hamilton parody on Rudolph was so good, Six13 returns with a Hanukkah Hamilton, entitled “A Hamilton Chanukah.” Tangentially American. Wait, The Maccabeats do this, too? Theirs is called “Hasmonean.”
Most of the down home corpone i shoveled out was about how much we miss our troops this time of year (Marc Sardou’s “Soldiers Christmas” and Dr. BLT’s “Daddy’s Gone off to War (On Christmas Day)“), or about how patriotic we can be (Carly Clo’s “Christmas Time in America“). Talented, but so oversentimental as to be boring.
Biting the hand, Johnny Setlist pushes 1st Amendment limits with a BLUE ALERT bit o’ the irony “Christmas in America (Every Single Day).” Folkabilly that hits that mandolin hard, mocking by protesting too much in honor of.
Just as funning, F. Lobot intones ‘The Night Before’ to the karaoke of ‘Star-Spangled’: Yes, it’s “The Star-Spangled Christmas Tree.” Stand up, godammit.
What i DID not pursue that first iteration was that political ping pong tournament of Dems v. Reps. You want that hairpulling, read whichever news appeals to you. But i have found an irreverent easy listening country piece about how both sides should get along for the holidays. It’s BLUE ALERT time, so take a tranq, get comfy, and listen patiently to Red State Update’s “Divided Nation Christmas.” (It’s like ten years old, so historical… and what’s the saying about tragedy + time = comedy…?)