Category: pop music

State Thirty-Five: Nebraska

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
A lotta folks sing a lotta trads in NB.
Josh Osborne has an original carol “Nebraska” on Christmas Across America. It’s a pretty country tune about rushing through the snow to get home to the love of his life. Croony longheld notes, not quite yodeling. Pop country MOR, but gets the job done.
And keep in mind, we are disqualifying Mulberry Lane’s “Christmas in Nebraska” because it’s a copy of “X in WI” and “X in IA.”
So for today i’m going to go wild via Curt Bright instead. With his brother Randy, Curt plays as the String Beans (available for children’s parties). In his video “Cornhusker Christmas” Curt riffs and japes all the local-entia with wacky stock sfx and basic hi jinx video editing. Try not to giggle ’til Xmas now. (And DO wait for the final line.)

State Twenty-Six: Minnesota

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Honestly, I thought I’d find more Garrison Keillor. Flipping through my collection and browsing the ‘tube I can find NO cute parodies from his radio show Prairie Home Companion with the names Minnesota, Minneapolis, or St. Paul featured for Xmas. Share if you can find any.
If that’s what you were hoping for I’ll recommend a ‘tube tune the author of which I cannot find. bombocjk1 has posted his “Minnesota Christmas” as revelation of his family’s rituals with reverential as well as wry observations paired with a wicked slide show. It’s honest and humorous and the melody is from a Finnish traditional song–dirge, dirge, baby. Totally adds to the solemnity. Good ‘un.
The Female Quartet of Southern Gospel Music sings “A Minnesota Christmas” about The Advent in the middle of a mall in case you forgot all that God’s son aborning and stuff while you were looking for bargains. Beautiful harmonizing, if not proselytizing.
For upbeat and folksy we look to Sam Begich who recorded harmony with his sis in Switzerland to compile a cute family memories album “(We Miss Our) Minnesota Christmas.” Wizard, guys! Ups to your and your aw-shucks technological fun.
Now, there was almost no way I woulda stretched my criteria to include Tom Waits‘s “A Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.” MN deserves better than that. Though, I do admit, Neko Case sirens up a version that’s almost pretty (from a Tom Waits tribute album entitled New Coat of Paint.)
My favorite, by a hair, would be Twin Cities Jewfolk’s “A Minnesota Christmas.” It’s bouncy party froth with that alluring cross-culture tease at its edges. Plus which this video was a fundraiser for good causes. ‘Tis the season, celebrants.

 

Scary Christmas Part F(layed al)IVE

The absolute scariest Christmas song ever has to be Fred’s “Christmas is Creepy.”
Fred Figglehorn, as grown out of by Lucas Cruikshank, was a helium-voiced six-year-old with deep emotional problems and millions of followers on his Youtube channel, and on Nickleodeon.
He’s as amusing as a screeching contest, but his song deals with the childhood traumas wrought by Christmas TV specials and stories on the overimaginatively young (He’s coming into the house? When I’m asleep?!)
It’s an added bonus that the performer is so upsetting and the song is so familiarly upbeat. I’m creeps totes.