Category: country sort of

Christmas Every Day: June

Let’s cheat some more.

Best mention of June for Christmas is from the April-May-June run “Christmas in April” by Butch Walker. Bradley Glen ‘Butch’ Walker was a bit of a somebody lead guitarist for metal and rock bands back in the ’90s and earlier. His gentle country-rock love song here is aw shucks sentimental and santarific. Love is Christmas no matter what month.

Manger Management: Bovine Grace

Let’s get inside the stable with the real manger-ettes finally.

Santa’s helping at the Gilmer Dairy Farm in “The Gilmer Dairy Farm Christmas Song.” Will Gilmer sings up a bucketful of ‘Jingle Bells’ parody with cows in mind and it’s worth half a listen.

Cattle drives gotta happen first, o’ course. Cowboy Greg & The Done Goods yodel out “Cows Love Christmas” with that open range fantasia that usually precedes delusional seizures and death.

Bringing the hoofed ones home for the holidays Daniel Gould of Music Tech Group, solemnizes “Give a Cow for Christmas.” This rocks and feeds back and, i guess, postulates that poor people could use a burger as a gift this time of year. Hmmmm.

But we must pause and salute the greatest cow novelty Christmas music album of all time: It’s a Cow Christmas by Terry Esau. This True Christian went a little nuts in the best possible creative way cranking out parody after parody of carols with a taurine twist or two. Check out “God Rest Ye Merry Cattlemen” (reverential)

and the best of the herd: “Santa Cow.” It’s disco meets rap meets country meets trucker rock. Mooo, boy.

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Axis of Awesome comes to the rescue with a real Nativity four-footed number. “I Love Being a Cow” may have a sudden turn to watch out for though. Watch out.

A Month of Love: The Bellamy Brothers

I listen to country regular-like (from the wife’s influence), and i like honest country: Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn… but something happened near the ’80s. Pop music (including elements of disco) invaded and it just wasn’t country any more.

It was bad.

This 1996 Bellamy Brothers Christmas cash cow is just such awfulness. Listen to “Our Love is Like Christmas” all (including the wooden, cutesie couple banter intro AND outro) if… you… dare.

The Future: Aliens! (4)

A couple songs seem just a wee more grown up.

Alienation means we just don’t belong–NONE OF YOU EVER LOVED ME!! Being an alien can be so sad. The Pocket Gods sing about the disenfranchised extra terrestrials in “Alien Xmas Song.” Soft rock emo hopeful wistful noise.

More rocking (alt/folk) are The Hot Buttered Elves, investigating what weird genealogy Santa must have with “Alien Santa.” Clap along!

Rednecks and aliens have always shared a special relationship. Watching the skies is like watchin’ out for revenuers. But getting abducted and probed is just some more family drama for inbred backwoods hillbillies. So give a minute to the foolishness of anote4u’s “Aliens Stole My Christmas Tree.” Hee hee haw.

The Future: All Other SF TV+Movies

Other science fiction futuristic shows and movies have little Christmas song love. Battlestar Glactica? Farscape? Babylon 5? Stargate? ALF? Red Dwarf? VR5? Continuum? Forget it.

Then there’s Firefly.

Mikey Mason, the least likely Bubba to sell a sentimental nerd ballad, wails through the 5 stages of loss for that ’02 Joss Whedon western/space opera mashup misstep in “Please Bring Firefly Back for Christmas.”

State Forty-Three: Colorado

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
The big one you’ve probably heard in this department is “Colorado Christmas” popularized by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  This is the classic homesick hallelujah that puts L.A. in its place (damn you to hell, comfortable climates!) and elevates the Rockies to Heaven (‘cuz the air’s so thin, i guess). I honestly prefer many of the female versions (like Meredith Grenfell-Bird‘s vocals for The Clear Creek No Name Band’s cover) of this tune to these gritsters. Been there, don we now our cliched ugly sweaters.
Now i am not going to count most of John Denver’s ouevre, including “Aspenglow,” as it doesn’t really yell The Nativity in The Centennial State. I need the words said (preferably in the title). But please listen with half an ear to these lesser known songs i found and see’n iffen you can’t detect a trace of that spherical-headed troubadour’s influence.
More homegrown (if awfully familiar in that way) is Melinda Trondson’s “Colorado Christmas,” a young, happy strummer of a song with old country harmony and comfortably worn (out) literary devices.
Steve Martin has observed that nothing played on the banjo can be sad–it’s so chipper! Working hard against this hypotheis is Ashleigh Caudill’s “Colorado Christmas Eve” about new love snuggled indoors during the holidays. This mournful maundering muzzles Joyeux Noelle in all its glee.
“Christmas Colorado Cowboy” by Jill and Allen Kirkham also measures the season in its severity by the hard labor of the keeper of the herd. But the guitar/fiddle gravitas here seems earned and reverential. Like one of those prayers where you keep your head down just an extra minute
Contrarily, Mark Putt Explosion plays with the whole legalized pot whoop-de-doo for Colorado with “Mile High Santa,” Ha ha, Santa’s in trouble with the police. Ho ho… hum.
Naw naw naw, I’m going to stay sticky-sweet sincere here. “Colorado Christmas Cowboy,” by Dan Schafer, plays that 1970s country styling… you know, the kind that had a story unfold so that the refrain changed its meaning a little bit after each verse, but the melody was a bit more pop than it shoulda been… you know? Remember when ‘loving country before country was cool’ was actually a pop song that was hardly country at all? Good times. Oh yeah, and near death experiences are pretty relatable this time of year.

State Thirty-Four: Kansas

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS

The most Kansas friendly Please-Come-Visit-Us rendition would have to be Paul Ritchie’s “Kansas Merry Christmas,” basically commissioned by the mayor to the visiting ASCAP award winner and resort and cruise ship singer. You’re going to need some crackers for the cheese. Ritchie has a hobby of cozying up to his favorite spots with holiday hymns for Kentucky and Michigan as well.

Just as maudlin middle of the road pop is “Christmas in Kansas City” by Brad Millison. It’s so retro 1985 cool i’m flashing back to liking Christopher Cross songs. For an updating with sweet soul see Heartland Men’s Chorus backing Dustin Rapier in one of those poignant Christmas concert moments that makes fat bankers’ wives cry.

The most playful Kansas carol is from Prairie Rose Rangers. “Christmas in Kansas” is boot kickin’ fun and you can get a glimpse of this tune on the ‘tube where they’re all bedecked in enormous plaid. Sadly, it’s only a glimpse.
My favorite Wintertime Singing for the Sunflower State is down-home Kristie Stremel belaboring being snowed in with her “Kansas Snow Song.” She’s clever and talented and generous (I guess: she holds a Favorite Snow Photo Contest in the middle of the video on the ‘tube). The song focuses on a late snowfall when Spring is supposed to be here. But it’s so honest and beautiful I have to put it first.

State Thirty: Arkansas

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Now this is what I am talking about: some grade school teacher at Iglesia(?) somewhere in AK. She apparently makes up songs on her own youtube channel (like Kate Micucci’s character in Raising Hope) and here she’s got kids singing and acting out for “Arkansas Christmas.” It’s a madhouse, a MADHOUSE! Somewhere in there is some message about shopping on Black Friday and AR’s Xmas being “natural.”
“O Little Town of Boggy Creek” is Sam Stokes’s stab at local lore, some creature hiding in the swamps (at least the subject matter of D-list movies like the one Mystery Science Theater 3000 made sport of). How droll to use Christian music to madcap the monster’s tale!
More legitly, Dan Schafer (from that great compilation Christmas Across America) sings “Arkansas Angel.” It’s barely a Christmas reference, but it’s soooo pretty with tenored up tones and fantastic fiddlin’ i want to open it again and again.
Now to prove that news shows love the local carols, i present you with “Christmas Time In Arkansas.” Ned Perme, the song’s creator, is a weatherman from Little Rock, who rocks in his spare time. You can find his version on the ‘tube. Here, as intro’d by an actual anchor, Terry Rose sings. I know–it sounds like a warmed over Lifetime movie soundtrack. But this song was nominated for a regional Emmy. And its album, Songs for the Season, raised money for National Kidney Foundation of Arkansas and The Amercian Heart Association. Channel 7, Little Rock, On Your Side!

State Twenty-Nine: Missouri

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
I’m not upset that the Bible Belt here has so little Christmas to sing about Branson (except for Lallie Bridges’s laughable copycat Christmas jingle), Springfield, Jeff CIty, or the Show Me State itself. I am not mad, but i am disappointed.
Christmas Across America has the chameleonic Diedre Jenkins’s number “Missouri Christmas Card,” which soulfully beatifies family and friendship, beating on the guitar-box Indigo Girls style. It’s an “anywhere” song and doesn’t make you yearn for MO.
“Christmas in Kansas City” by Brad Millison is so Christopher Cross cool it makes me nestle up in my thick shawl necked sweater and look thoughfully into the distance. KC, for me, has always been half in half out (Kansas, too, you know). This piece of merry pop is from one of those FM radio compilations, but KCKC Star 102 seems to have gone under. The song still underplays local good morning shows every December.
Let’s just focus on the capitol. “Christmas in St. Louis” is sung by Randy Mayfield, an ordained minister who just has to sing! His bigs are national anthems for local sports, opening for Christian acts, and worldwide tours with other countries’ symphonies. Sing it, Rand-man! And make it all ‘Eighties pop country with tremulo backed up by harsh electric guitar riffs. ‘Cause that’s what Missourians do.