Year-round Yuletide oddities
Never a single, never a video, this Barenaked Ladies crowd pleaser has been included in several of their albums and ALL of their live shows. So no charting, but apparently this one has become a special memory for concert-goers worldwide.
Joel Kopischke does it again with “If I Had a Secret Santa.” Noel, Joel.
Milwaukieans Violent Femmes’ album Violent Femmes became the band’s biggest-selling album and was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA… themselves went on to become one of the most successful alternative rock bands of the 1980s, selling over 9 million albums by 2005. The original song here is one that helped make them famous, fight, and fall apart.
Joking ’round with it, jumpin’ Joel Kopischke needs a vacation from snow with “Christmas in the Sun.” Australia p’raps?
Storyteller Harry Chapin’s enduring hit topped the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1974… his only No. 1 hit song… nominated for the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance… inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.
Saturated with symphonic folk ApologetiX nails it with “Christ in the Stable.” Appreciate me now, Dad?!
This Paul Simon song is a bugbear for vinyl collectors. Originally released in the Paul Simon Songbook only in the UK, it was later tacked onto The Leaves That are Green with Garfunkle. Station samples were pressed in red with mono on on side and stereo on the other. The single charted to #3 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was my high school girlfriend’s signature song.
The following parody is not exactly holiday themed, but it is seasonal. And Simon and Garfunkle bits are hard to come by. So there. “Polar Bear Anthem” chronicles the wacky antics of those who jump into sub-zero December waters. Thanks, Balderdash & Humbug!
The Mamas and Papas song was not an immediate breakthrough… a radio station in Boston broke the song nationwide… peaked at number 4 in March on both the Billboard Hot 100, lasting 17 weeks, and Cashbox, lasting 20 weeks… certified as a Gold Record (single) by the RIAA… inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001… also reached number 23 on the UK charts upon its original release… is #89 in Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time… became a signpost of the California Myth and the arrival of the nascent counterculture era.
“Christmas in New England” is The ’60s Invasion’s Currier and Ives take over the river and through the mall.
Simon and Garfunkle’s quiet hit hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (leading the duo to reunite and hastily record their second album)… a top-ten hit in multiple countries worldwide, among them Australia, Austria, West Germany, Japan and the Netherlands… added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” in 2013.
One Hot Second battles the club crowd with the angry parody “Sounds of Christmas.” Cherish the season enough to curse.
Charles Milles Maddox was a nutball criminal turned murderer by the Beatles (it happens). He didn’t invent the persona of cult leader with daddy-issued groupies, but he sure got more media for it. Blame California, everybody else does.
Dirty Sick Europeans have crafted a dreamy jello serving of psychedelia “Merry Christmas Charly Manson.” It seems to ironically dig at the curious followers as well as at his own psychopathy. No ‘Helter Skelter’ wildness, this is soothing.
Now that we’ve treated the musicians who have treated us, take a cue from that last magnificent number and honor the images from our TVs and screens: the real stars of the American scene: actors.
Marion Mitchell Morrison was an instant movie star after nearly ten years of work. He headlined westerns through the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, eventually falling into an old man icon in TV skits in time for the counter culture to reject him as The Man. In retrospect he stands tall in the saddle, a American hero who’d rather explain it to you with his fists than his mumbling.
Rebecca Perschbacher sings “I Want John Wayne for Christmas” as a true fan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOffeiKXqsc
Robert Zimmerman is a Grammy, Pulitzer, Nobel prize winner with more awards than hit songs. He has a pass for everything he’s tried and failed at since 1972 (DO NOT attempt to listen to his Christmas album) because he was cool once upon a time and captured the spirit of disenfranchisement of the Boomers.
Shaun McCrindle sings the true story of a holiday sighting with “Bob Dylan’s in a Joke Shop” with laconic folk rocking. Appropriate.
Adam J Taylor honors Bob Dylan with “Sexy Bob Dylan Christmas,” conjuring a feeling for this time of year that is important, activist, and sexy. Well, that’s what he says. I find the song earnest and odd in equal measures.
Let’s end our month of drugs and Christmas songs on an upper.
James Brown celebrates “Clean for Christmas” in his own inimitable style. Lookee here!
Tim Cavanaugh (remember him from Dr. Demento’s show?) recommends “Let’s Have a Drug-Free Christmas” this year. Shall we? Pinky swear? Okay then. See ya.