Year-round Yuletide oddities
If you were to string every cinematic/televised crime scene together, you’d be dead (there’re too many). Surely these happen on Christmas Day.
Kerry Pastine and The Crime Scene holler out a swampbilly “Crime Scene Christmas” as if they were getting away with it. I’m taking a step back, myself.
Not many years later, coin operated machines played the hits as those with silver selected them. (Although the first ones may have only unlocked the machinery so you could crank it yourself.)
Andy Beck and Brian Fisher continue to churn out the elementary school assembly holiday pageants with their “Jingle Bell Jukebox,” a jazzy fast-paced showtune for very high voices.
Next up, radio signals into print!
Not too much Morse code or telegram songs for Christmas.
From a couple years ago, a cartoon special that was never made became a stage play, ‘A Tigglemeister’s Christmas.’ To wit: Santa’s best toymaker, Sniggle Tigglemeister, left the North Pole long ago, though no one seems to know why. With Christmas fast approaching, Santa’s toy supply is coming up short, so he sends a telegram to Sniggle begging him to return. But someone at the North Pole doesn’t want Sniggle back. As the entire quirky Tigglemeister clan makes its way north, head toymaker Hans Grumpleheimer will stop at nothing to lead them astray. Here’s the “One Loathsome Telegram,” the crux to the plot!
As mammoth a cultural pillar as Christmas be, all our advancing technology serves it from the printing press to AI. No, i’m not going to include Alexa singing (yawn). But i will fill your month with novelty tunes that reference the overtaking crawl of advancement and progress machine-wise to our happy times from past to present (there is NO future).
Writing has been with us longer than Christ, so i’ve already offered some cards and letters in Christmas songs before now.
Brentwood Kids Company spell it out with “Love Letters of Christmas.” Whoa, not the steamy ones from a long distance relationship. Though X does figure in.
For the adult stuff, let’s tune in R. Kelly’s “Love Letter.” Brought to you by the letters R+B.
Keith Whitley’s “Christmas Letter” is a last testament by a dying old man. It’ll stand up in a court of law. And jerk some country tears.
Let’s work in more wit: Jerry Becker has a clever English lit showtune “The Man Who Writes the Cards” about the penman behind the Christmas greetings for you (and, well, you–i don’t buy those; prefer to make my own).
War on Christmas got you down, bucko? Hit default, darling.
“Everyone’s a Christian at Christmas” debates Eric Branget, Julia Pastorius, and David Burrows from Another Fucking Christmas Play: A Fucking Musical. Didn’t the High School do that last year?
Clearly the best novelty Christmas song about Mrs. Santa Claus is the German Expressionistic tour-de-force from Soshana Bean. “Surabaya – Santa” is a journey of origin, romance, jealousy, abandonment, resentment, payback, manic-depression, humiliation, and evolution. Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway 1995 musical ‘Songs for a New World’ offers a revue of mad masterpieces including this rando operetta. Holy mother.
Protests against the Christmas combine have rallied and failed many times. Apparently the Frank Costanza bit in Seinfeld predates to the O’Keefe household, one of the writers from that show. I’ll leave it to you to research what’s the deal with this Dec. 23 hoo-hah, as i prefer to learn about life through song.
The story comes to us by way of Joel Kopischke with “The Festivus Bunch.” One man with a uke and some research catches us all up. Ain’t loinin’ fun?
Ben Kling attempts to catch you up with the sitcom mythos in his pretend Seinfeld: The Musical. (The woes of overpopulation, too much about nothing.) “Festivus” features bad impersonations, jazzy rap caroling, and a little humor. Enjoy.
Bob “Rogro” Grow is less successful with his adorable folk lovefest “The Festivus Song.” Some of the pissy annoyance is captured, but it’s a bit light-hearted to represent Angry America.
Also introductory by way of lounge jazz, Brett Houston cools out “A Festivus Holiday Jam” by comparing major celebrations one at a time.
Brian McCarthy gets weird with some horror movie soundtrack inspired moaner “It’s Festivus.” Appropriate. But i think melacholier than thou.
Can we make fun of ethnic differences from a comfortable chair and NOT be mean-spirited? Is it fair to mock all but those we bear a burden of guilt from? What?
All i know is, please approach these wacky novelty holiday songs with care.
We’ve already considered “The Kwanzaa Song” from Futurama. Antic!
D.L. Hughley hires a white jewish guy to write the epitome of the Kwanzaa carol.Jeff Marx’s “White Kwanzaa” is a showtune of uncertainty, backpedaling, and a shared wink.
Gone in a wink is Sizone’s tecnho-garbledygoo “Kwanzaa is Here.” The message is medium warm.
Sam & Bill’s live “Kwanzaa Song” is the usual floundering of white guys with an uncomfortable topic. Attention deficit theater folk.
Barnes & Barnes apply more white sentiment onto “Kwanzaa’s Here Again.” This trembling hawaiian folk is awkward and light-hearted, not in that order.
If love had a center, it should be in the home. All the possibilities of growth, hope, being begin in a happy warm hearth. Christmas, we could wish, is the opportunity to express, share, and achieve the pinnacle of that completion.
Patch the Pirate (?!) creates a musical cartoon for the ears with “Christmas at Our House,” a religious orgasm of happy family time. Quaint kidsong.
Errol Brown electro-R+Bs “Family Christmas Time” to the pinnacle of ecstacy. Family is it, man. Nuthin’ better.
Soaring above the mundanity Ann Hampton Calloway (and sis Liz) praise and ask “God Bless My Family.” Not so much with the Christmas gathering, but a pretty good contribution to the spirit of the holiday.
You know the meme: ‘If you met my family, you’d understand.’ It’s as funny today as ‘I’m turning into my mother!’ was 25 years ago. But families don’t just have a chemistry (good or bad), they have a diagnosis.
They might be poorly sung: the family rehab showtune from Monique Madrid “Family Christmas Song” wherein the digs are made with love/hate.
They might be soulful parody: the ‘Silver Bells’ unplugged acid resignation as “Frozen Smiles” from Nancy McKeown. Cue the discordant whistlers!
Passive-aggressive gets its own spotlight. “Have Yourself a Passive Aggressive Christmas” from Keef Baker tosses us another parody. Or else… what? Joshua Tyra resupplies our amateur showtune (this time with more range) in “A Passive-Aggressive Christmas.” Growling through gnashed teeth! Original talent comes from queens Jinkx Monsoon (feat. Major Scales) and their “Passive Aggressive Christmas.” Jazzy showtune about how to swallow it.