FIFTY STATES OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Okay, Mass-holes, where’s your carol? You got, like one–and it’s awful, that’s what you got.
The song: “Christmas in Boston.” James Melody was huge (nearly 400#) on the local TV circuit a few years back singing and re-singing his X-mas anthem for every talk show and news crew all about what made Beantown beam with pride. Mayor Menino gave him a proclamation in ’08 for representin’ and pronouncin’ all his words without that accent. I kid, but I love the middle-of-the-road showtune bounciness here… the ceaseless references to every traditional carol… the roster of where to go… It’s like a wordsearch for the season! It’s actually too big a song for my liking… it’s got it’s own website.
P.S. There’s a “Christmas in Gloucester” song on youtube as well. It’s an ’11 original song by Paul “Sasquatch” Cohan celebrating America’s Oldest Seaport, Gloucester Massachusetts. But it’s lower class and downbeat. So screw him.
P.P.S. There’s a better “Christmas in Gloucester” by The Souls of the Sea ‘tubing as well. This is loads more fun, drinking and laughing and falling off barstools… all in honor of those lost at sea during those terrible Winter storms. In order to suffer that loss, this particular video begins with the more somber (less holiday) ‘The Bella Figlia’ about The Eternal Voyage of fisherfolk. Wait for the oompah and you’re nearly there.
Category: folk
State Three: Vermont
Let’s continue through New England to find specially state-dependent Christmas songs of a novel nature.
FIFTY STATES OF ‘MERICA-MAS
The Green Mountain State is no Ho Ho Holiday for seasonal spirituals, but rather a stingy Scrooge of unimaginative traditional carols sung in small private poorly lit areas.
Okay I did find a song called “Christmas in Vermont.” Just what i was looking for! But it’s one you’ve heard already. This is a bastardization of “Moonlight in Vermont” with some Christmas words subbed in. That’s just what you’d expect from Prairie Home Companion. Despite the predictability, Heather Masse lays it down smokey and jazzy, though. Like a welcome fireplace out of the cold….
So let’s find a weird one. On the Guiseppi Joe label, Dave Hall has dropped an odd album of old folk and slave carols (you read that right) including this one he wrote himself. Sweet–at times too sweet–“Christmas in Vermont” recalls the rural melancholy i keep in my heart from my own time in VT. Hard-wintered but hardly complaining, self-suficient though racked with poverty, fiercely loyal if not out-going, these are peoples who chainsaw a living off the land despite the leaf-peepers, fast-driving on-their-way-through Canadians, and looking-for-a-bit-of-relaxation-transplanted Lowlanders. Dave Hall is in fact one of those New Yorkers, but he’s so indie folk rock that you forgive him. He’s kinda low key, having only a couple children’s musicals published and performed. Still I’m a sucker for a love song, even a sad one (wait, is the wife in this song dead?).