Also Mollusca are slugs and snails (but not little boy parts).
Their inclusion in holiday humorous hymns is hit and miss.
Snaildartha is an experimental jazz album playing under the spoken word jazz of (The Story of Jerry the Christmas Snail). If that’s your thing, go with Thelonius. Or you could start with “A Snail is Born.” It’s different. Not exactly novelty Christmas music.
More outre are The Snails, post modern rockers from Baltimore with band mate names like Snailpril and Snailliam. Their “Snails Christmas (I Want a New Shell)” is just what you want to hear before you go clubbing.
Folk On is a comedy folk trio from Little Dribblepatch. Gloucester. Reminiscent of The Irish Rovers and The Kingston Trio, they know how to set a mood and tell a story. Listen to the saga of poor little “Ernie, the Christmas Slug” as he moves out of the regular rotation as ‘the Little Pet Slug’ and becomes the saviour of the working class.
I’m sure i don’t have to tell you how awful it is to incorporate bugs into the body of Christ-mas music. Eww.
So let’s get nasty.
Worst of all doesn’t seem to have actual arthropoda. Kirby Krackel nerd rock comic songsters extrodinaire have a precious holiday single “I’m Stuck in a Human Centipede for Christmas” which is what the song is about. If you are intrigued at all, check these guys out. This is poor-taste awesome.
Old Hands’ “Doug the Christmas Bedbug” instructs as well as horrifies. View the youtube slide show at your peril. Something Native American about the whole musical theme that makes me wonder.
Wane Fawesome marries Cheech and Family Guy to get an insect-invasion STD Christmas song full of Jingle Bells jollity with hardly the need for a Blue Alert. “Itchy Balls.” It’s catchy.
At a Naturist Convention, Helene Williams & Leonard Lehrman sing an updated “A Cockroach Christmas” with material torn from yesterday’s headlines (listen to his intro). It’s an infestation nativity!
Gary Strickland wants the last word on disgusting Christmas racism with “Jose, the Christmas Cockroach.” The guy went to a lot of video-making trouble and the number is way too long. But this is what novelty Christmas music is all about. All genius effort, no class.
Star Wars is so original and imaginative (wink wink) that it simply must beget original Christmas songs–not only parodies. So let’s explore the few, the proud, the Jedi of carols.
With more fun than talent (like with me and you), Sci-Fried featuring Marc With a C soft-rock out to “Star Wars Christmas.” It’s not quite the Dark side, but it is about getting. And puppets!
Steve Yotch Crotch gives us “The Star Wars Christmas Song” about a simple Christmas wish for 2015. Amateur fun. You should be amateurishly amused.
StarrySky has wrapped up a badly translated “Santa Vader” full of emo manga. It’s odd and dark and catchy. (I KNEW the Dark Side had the best cookies!) (Francophiles please to follow the directions at the end of the video.)(Then tell me what the noel is going on here.)
American Samoa is not Samoa, which doesn’t belong to us. AS was occupied around 1900 and has never been fully adopted. It’s an unincorporated territory. Kind of a hobby, i guess. The big exports are tuna and military recruits (no other jobs, brah).
Some of the carols in Samoan are pretty, if a little electric. Like, you know, “Alofaaga mo Toa o Samoa” by the Petesa-Uta Congregational Christian Church of American Samoa Choir. Or, on the pop side, Mr. Tee and Zipso (a morning Zoo radio duo??) rap out “Manuia Le Kerisimasi.” Great guitar riffing (Island Bluegrass??) and purdy pop holiday moods come from Panesi Afulao with “Tu’u Mai Lu Lima.” It’s a two-step, fur sure.
As for English The American Samoa Community College Choir sings Dr. Paul Pouesi’s heartbreaking (i guess) paean for the tsunami victims back in 2010: “Christmas is Here Again.” (I’m pretty sure that’s not ironic.)
I’m going to settle on the language i don’t know, however, because ANZ Bank Choir rock me with “Samoa’s 13th Days Christmas.” It sounds like ladies vs. gents, but i kinda wanna sing along.
Guam is the jewel of the Marianas Islands… which we also ‘protect.’ It’s all military and touristy. A nice place to visit (Magellan liked it)….
For a taste of the people and their language and our electric keyboards try “Chamorro Christmas Songs. I may be hearing a bit of polka oompah. The Germans used to own the Northern Marianas. Hmmm.
Louise and Friends sing “Santa’s Island in the Sun” as a truly dreadful disco rap. They want to entertain you–or time travel.
St. Francis School Honor Choir brings us “Christmas in Guam” with harmonies of angels missing teeth piggybacking a ’70s backbeat. Their innocence truly makes this tiny rock a paradise for the holidays. (For a grittier version check out the slide show version here.)
Although i finished State Fifty: Hawaii back on the fifth of December, USA gots some provincing to do…
The people of Puerto Rico have had citizenship since 1917, and the archipelago has been a commonwealth since 1952, but PRs have regularly defeated bills to vie for statehood. More Puerto Ricans live in the continental than on the island. Poverty and unemployment are rampant. then again–party-time for touristas. And ‘West Side Story.’
So quick pick (another Dr. Demento fave): Rickie Vera singing “How Can Santa Come to Puerto Rico?” It’s on a lovely compilation entitled Mambo Santa Mambo from the friendly folks at Rhino.
Is this the first secular (read: no angels, shepherds, JC–or symbols of his never ending love) Christmas carol? James Pierpont (uncle of historical Scrooge J P) wrote this for Thanksgiving back in 1857. And it was often abused as a drinking song (jingle those cubes in your empty glass for a refill, bae). But given its bare melodic line and overwhelming omnipresence, ‘Jingle Bells’ is the 600 lb Santa who gets whatever he wants.
Because it’s been played to death, the parodies are sadly too many too thinly spread over too little foundation. Mostly, yecch.
Classics, of course, include The Three Stooges’ “Jingle Bell Drag,” Da Yooper’s “Rusty Chevrolet,” Jeff Dunham’s “Jingle Bombs” by Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Old schoolboy fave “Batman Smells” apparently needed lots of original verses, so Steve Wilson Britted it up for the ‘tube. Yawn.
This is not counting all the odd instrumentals and animals (although Richard Cheese‘s is funny) and sfx (“Laughing All the Way” by St. Nick isn’t too stupid, either).
But when it comes down to comedy, white people, am i right? “Holidays are Hell” by MyLifeSuckers (she means her family) complains in song about shopping, in-laws, and travel because having all that money means mo problems.
The Fallen Angel Choir also belabors the monetized merrymaking you mongrels have amassed on top of the Mass. Their sell-abration is entitled “Jingle Coins.”
Most movie parodies are poorly talented filk singers with overwrought wordplay poorly done, but someone (The Deluminators) took a little more time with “Catch the Snitch.” I don’t hate it.
Urban but not quite ghetto is Crazy Al Cayne rhyming “Out on Bail.” Festive more than funny.
Because it’s such an innocent beginning to courtship, someone’s gotta pornography this scene ’til we all get upshot. so BLUE ALERT.
DIRTY: Nasty Crue metals up “Jingle Balls” for no other reason than they’re jealous of professional rockers who get all that sex and drugs. Thanks for that.
DIRTIER: Wane Fawes Hispanicly laments his latest lamest STD with “Itchy Balls.” And you thought Cheech and Chong had no legacy.
DIRTIEST: John Valby makes music hall fun with filth. “Jingle Balls” details depravity, perversity, and automobile erotica for the bells of it.
But i enjoy learning while i’m caroling. So let’s travel the world using our jingle to jingo our way into others’ customs. The Savage Muse bemoans her sad Japanese Christmas observation with “Christmas Cake.” It is finger lickin’ good. Less fun is South African Tobias Niehur wishing he had what JB promises in his “Jingle Bells.” (KINDA BLUE STILL HERE: I might take a moment for all my xenophobes out there and include that humorous misinterp of another’s language “Kinky Tom” transcripted but not translated by Arhiblog.) For sheer joy, however, Bucko & Champs replicate the New Englander experience for Down Under. Lots of new words to learn so follow along!
Klezmer originally meant musical instruments. But it came to represent a style of celebratory dance music. Can’t have a proper Chanukah party without some bass booming and clarinet wailing like the souls of the lost.
“Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” in Yiddish (and Klezmer) doesn’t work as well by Kugelplex. Love their Disney cartoon, too.
If you have the time, make your way through this entire Klezmer Nutcracker by Shirim. Yeah it’s The Holidays, i know you’re busy! You’ll feel better afterwards–trust me!
The Aloha State is technically Americans who are foreigners. (Aren’t we all?) They have their own Christmas song–in their own foreign language. I am not gonna bother with “Mele Kalikimaka” in any version (not even Don Ho) nor even any ‘funny’ version (not even the appropriately polka version by Reel Big Fish on the 1997 KROQ Christmas album). But i might mention an illuminating Tom Scott linguistic breakdown of the exact translation of that phrase. Moving on…
“Christmas in the Rainbow State” by Stasia Estep is exactly what we’d hope for. It’s vaguely authentic and mentions all the highlights of holiday-ing in Hawaii. But it veers into pop-country and got used on the modern Hawaii Five-O TV show. Too bourgeoisie allasudden.
Sam Sims has also been included in that TV soundtrack with his “Hawaiian Christmas.” It’s a bit too much uke, slack key, and mele kalikimaka. I’ve got way too many Island versions of the trads to get excited here.
Red Peters’s “Have a Wonderful Hawaiian Christmas” gets so ethnically racist i’m not sure the ‘kamon ai wanna lei ya’ nonsense is nostalgic for horrible strip comics from the ‘Fifties, or just intolerantly insensitive. Naw, it’s hate.
OFFICIAL BLUE ALERT While we’re down and dirty, consider The Jackofficers (a side project of a couple of the Butthole Surfers) techno-sampling for “An Hawaiian Christmas.” Nothing naughty, but nothing fun. Ahh, the ’90s!
Just as messed up is Dan Barletta Jr. and his “Hawaiian Christmas Song” which adds feedback to reverb to electric guitar versions of surf music versions of carols (and Hawaii Five-O‘s intro).
Joey Mackee gets all cheesy lounge nightclub with his “Christmas in Hawaii.” That’s one way to do it.
Strange electronic bleating sets the beat for Motogawa Music’s “Christmas in the Islands.” There’s a pretty song in there somewhere, but it seems put together by commitee.
Patrick Landza goes gently comic with “Hula Girl for Christmas.” It’s all harmonious innocence and regional ha-cha-cha. Cute wish list, kid.
These Polyneisan pagans are converts though. And you can hear the angelic church messages in Roddy Lopez’s “Hawaiian Christmas.” It is a medley (gah!) but it’s too pretty not to consider.
Dana Spencer’s “Mahalo Santa Claus” gets us down to the children’s level and makes us sit in a circle with percussive sticks and sing along. Sweet and sincere (and from that great set Christmas Across America).
Hawaiian kids are the best singers, guys! “My Hawaiian Christmas” from some odd compilation decades ago (Hawaii’s Favorite Christmas Songs) tugs at the heartstrings (although that graceless pianer plinking is offputting).
A couple ol’ gals in their dining room wail on their ukuleles and sing “Taro Patch Christmas.” Lei’ohu and Maydeen cast a spell on the season with their chuckling and hard harmonies. You can hear it better on Lei’ohu’s album, but i likes the comraderie of the home-made version here. Mahalo, women.
The sad white version of hey–it’s just us singing is done by The Chestnuts (Geri Grayson and Greg Blunt), “Hawaiian Christmas Song” sounds like old Canadian mounties competitively singing falsettos to their lady loves.
My favorite parody is a homespun Canadian group The Yule Be Sorrys singing “Away in Hawaii” (taking off of ‘Away in a Manger’)
revealing why we have so many ho hum Hawaiian Christmas songs: us cold boring mainlander Americans go there then and they gots to entertain us with some provincial localism.
Time for sunny fun! Odd Polynesian gods laugh down on scared natives in Na Leo’s “Santa Island.” It’s condescending pidgin AND funny. Laughing with… i guess. Oh probably just racist, like Jar Jar Binks.
Now if Santa can be mamboing he can certainly be hulaing. Californians Punama and Graden Island Blend put together “The Santa Hula Song” for gifts and giggles.
Uncle Benny Kai hit us with “Hawaiian Santa,” another so so offering, fun to dance to and reminiscent of Islanders, but come on… that da-dooda da-dooda is just musical warming up.
Patrick Canning has a haunting holiday hymn, “Hawaiian Christmas.” It’s barely holding on harmony and dreamlike alt-World music edge transports me like i’m drifting on the tide… the yuletide, natch! This Newfoundlandian folk singer writes a Christmas song every year and makes his own horrible video to accompany it. They skirt taste deliciously. Check him out.
well, gang, that’s fifty… so far. Okay fiddy-tree since i threw in D.C., Virgin Islands, and Lakota Nation. After the actual holidays which are nearing i’ll get back to PR, Samoa, Guam, N. Mariana (but probably not the little islands nor atolls: Wake, Midway, Palmyra, Johnston).
