Year-round Yuletide oddities
The opening track on the Rolling Stones’ 1968 album Beggars Banquet charted only up to #10 on the US Billboard rock listing… #2 in Finland… Rolling Stone magazine placed it at number 32 in its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.
Rolling Stones gather little mock, but juggernauts must be teased at times.
Balderdash and Humbug sub Santa for Satan with “Sympathy for Santa.” Writes itself, dunnit?
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs spun up a worldwide success, selling three million copies and reaching No. 2 on the American Hot 100 chart… the first American record to sell a million copies during the British Invasion… stayed in the Hot 100 for a then-impressive 18 weeks… nominated for a Grammy Award… named Billboard’s “Number One Record of the Year” despite never reaching No. 1 on a weekly Hot 100… certified as gold by the RIAA.
The 60’s Invasion have some wintery fun with “Merry Christmas” looking out for Santa Claus. What’d Hattie say?
Our last offering, you may have noted, featured a jolly fella. Since Clement Clarke Moore happened to mention that Santa was a smoker, plenty have sung about what was in that bowl he was bogarting.
Neon has more international frivolity with “Santa was a Rasta.” This is slightly more psychedelic than Reggae, and the MJ references are neatly tucked around the corners. But, mmm–boy, it is fun.
For the full flavor of Rasta hold in “Rasta Santa” by Jah Small as long as your lungs can take it. The effects are immediate.
If you care to overdose, from about the same time as Jimmy Cliff was Harder Coming Jacob Miller and Ray I were losing themselves in “All I Want for Ismus.” Someone open a window.
Now for the dark days of the chronic carouser. We’ll spend another month on sheer drunkenness, but for now let’s blame the potent potable–whiskey–for the way things turnt out.
Shawn Brewster kicks off the childhood regret of missing family fun from this time of year. His lugubrious jazz slobberfest “Christmas and Whiskey” whines about being old and cold, but it’s hard to look away.
Maudlin country from JJ Voss also bewails his outcast state in “Whiskey, the Tree, and Me.” Does the drinking help you forget, or does it help you dwell on it? Dude, get a present.
Not quite as weepy, Don Hackney resents California from his down home country soul in “Whiskey Lights of Christmas.” Poor old Doris.
Professor Gall admits “Whiskey was the Medicine (To Get Me Through Another Christmas Eve Night).” It’s a circusy caterwaul in the manner of Tom Waits. Swirly, Shirley.
Adding to the minimalist list of happy holiday helpings, Ray Galindo croaks about “Hot Dogs and Whiskey for Christmas.” It doesn’t help his bluesy needs.
John Bell keeps his blues serious, but Xmases his “Ribs N Whiskey” standard with Christmas lyrics. His weird falsetto and blind flailings make a misery out of this parody, but that’s as it should be.
Garage punk from Jonny Manak rages that “Santa Stole My Whiskey.” It purports to psychedelia, but it’s just prankish boys.
Just as angry, The Fisticuffs punk-mouth that “Santa Smells Like Whiskey.” It’s low class trash, but isn’t that what we pogo to? Oi!
Enough! No way! Irish metal from The Kringles complains there’s “No Whiskey in Heaven (No Ice in Hell).” It’s a tip of the tam to Elvis Costello with a salute to Zappa, but i mean that in the best way.
Your best rum songs are going to be more authentic riddim from the islands. Compare and contrast the J.Buffet’s drunk st. Nick to the one in Rondy ‘Luta’ McIntosh’s “Rum Santa.” That’s 3rd-stage party-fool dancing. Look at what I can do!
Shawn ‘Da Ma$tamind’ Noel rides the rhythm into “What is Christmas Without Rum?” Chortling, whooping, chanting… 4th stage.
Hangovers get quieter. Throwback riddim from Lord Beginner glimpses the big band beginnings of riddim: cool calypso! “Christmas Morning the Rum Had Me Yawning” recalls plantation slave songs for me, so yeah.
Party foolishness springs out of “Horner Rum” by Mere. Parang is the Trinidad brand of riddim. Sorry to lump ’em all together.
Sprangalang growls through more parang “Bring Drinks.” But i can just make out the request to bring rum for Christmas. Probably some of the other days as well.
“Drink a Rum” best encapsulates the abandon of this spirit. The Merrymen make a boy band bit out of the debauchery while still keeping their roots Trinidadian. Lord Kitchener gets more primal here with sloppy vocals and cheap instrumentation. Check out the electronica of the ’60s!
We’ve run into foreign songs about Christmas dinner. We should join hands around the world, except then we couldn’t tuck in civilized-like. So let’s sing about the international Xmas repast.
Menace lends a taste of Antigua to his “Christmas Dinner.” Calypso canapés, anyone?
Newfoundland Harve Bishop may sound redneck, but his “Christmas Dinner with Sam” celebrates the cuisine and landscape of the Great White Northeast.
Did i say folk music went with home cooked meals? Did I? And did i mention plain folks love a good larf? I didn’t?
Tony Blanchard of Karukuleles soothes our souls with his menacing tale of overeating in “Christmas Dinner Song.” Delightfully, amusingly monotone.
The New Planets Band also solemnizes a somnolent song, “Christmas Dinner“–that is, until GRAMPA HIT THE SLIDING DOOR! A rockin’ coda if ever there was one after such a festive fest. Play that again!
Knock off all that fooling around! Here’s a cut with somber reverence for the family food-time: Carrie Newcomer makes the gathering of old time family members quite the religious experience in “A Long Christmas Dinner.” Suffering, redemption, holy rolls. Call Garrison Keillor!
No really, one more joshing jollity of a folk song. “The Christmas Dinner Eating Contest Down in Yelvertoft” hearkens back to the Emerald Isles and Paddy Wex wends and weaves through a tall tale suitable for a foreign light comedy film by Bill Forsyth in the ’80s. I’d go see this grueling, dueling showdown, but i’d stand off to the side a ways.
Christmas is for Christians, not those pork eschewing other religion followers. So let’s cut a slab of the-other-white-meat for the holidays.
Parang scat-man Scrunter puts it simply: he wants “A Piece of Pork for Christmas.” Ham likin’ what he be cookin’!
Just as Carribean, Ricky T riddims “My Christmas Pork.” Raucous and Rastafarian, but you must put your careful listening ears on… he wants to know where to put his pork in (not the f-word). I am not kidding.
Much whiter are Lisa and Rich parodying ‘Silent Night’ with “Garlic Pork.” They spent some time on their in-joke lyrics, so chew thirty times before swallowing.
It’s better Latinated; so here is Creig Camacho with his “Garlic Pork.” I can taste the salsa (music)!
Back to the riddim! Crocadile fights the vegetarian girlfriend with a Christmas repast of “Pork and Rum.” The song be so ‘mazing, i recommend seconds.
For those of you easily bored, bread becomes a vehicle for meat and cheese delivery, a la the sandwich. Christmas sandwiches may not have much of a following… yet.
The Chris Gethard Show has celebrated ‘Sandwich Night’ for many years, and even goes so far as to compare it to the Yuletide. BLUE ALERT their “F*@k Christmas, I Wish It was Sandwich Night” is bellicose, but uses condiments. It’s a bit like ADHD filk singing.
Angry head banging from Metal Lunch celebrating in their own “Christmas Sandwich” way. It chokes me out.
A bit off topic, The Beacon Baptist Bahamanians mounted a holiday musical A Peanut Butter Christmas, featuring wishful Christmas targets like “A Peanut Butter Sandwich.” Kid fun–happy and in tune. Kudos.
Christopher Dennis is a bit more reverent with “The Christmas Sandwich Song,” a tale of the old world and this family’s labor of love. My, that’s tasty balladeering!
Time is nigh to study the most easily identified (or 2nd or so, next to milk and cookies) sweetie mcpetey for the holidays: FURITCAKE.
As early as Roman times, fruits were mixed into sweet dough and baked. But with the advent of cheaper sugar, a preservative of fruits, the ideas of plums and cherries in December became too confectious to pass up. I mean, apart from preserves, you didn’t used to get a good chewy mouth-fructing when the snow piled high. Your insulin missed the rush. It was exciting to get it during dark days.
Today we have world-wide shipping, and freeze drying, and of course tons of canning. When people born around 1900 later became grandmothers they were still churning sugared-fruit laden wheat treats out like they remembered their moms bestowing upon their greedy tongues in days of yore gone by. Then the comedians, like Johnny Carson, started sarcastically to point out that we don’t appreciate tradition, ’cause now: Twinkies and Fudgey Whale cakes and crap like that.
I’m not saying you have to try it or like it, i’m saying–when’s the last time you made one or ate a slice of actual home-made, lovingly crafted fruit cake?
So–a few days on the f. sugarbomb.
Let’s start with the idea of the old lady and her tradition.
“Mrs. O’Leary’s Fruitcake” is brought to you by Ruby Murray, a jewel of the Emerald Isle from the 1950s. It’s detailed, improbable, and quite Irish–an old cabaret tale. Pat Harrington does this more deadpan, less lilting.
“Mrs. Hooligan’s Christmas Cake” becomes a crowd-pleasing folk happening for The Spinners. Not quite the same song–more threat of death by cake here. And more sibilant sound effects (spitting). The incomprehensibly accented version is from Clinton Ford. The Charles Peake music hall overly serious version claims provenance from Finnegan’s Wake.
Actually it’s a variant of the original “Miss Fogarty’s Christmas Cake,” which inspired James Joyce sommat. Willy Brady relates this without smirk. Tommy Mulvihill quicksteps this business like he wants to jig away the calories. Mick Moloney slows this down as if chewing his way through an entire slice. Steel Clover snarks it up making me wonder if this is what Irish sounds like with a Bronx accent. Stan Ransom swallows the lyrics in favor of featuring a fine mandolin backing. Seamus Kennedy returns us to standard basso monotone. Brass Farthing‘s is flat yet lively, Golden Bough‘s is tinny yet earnest, Danaher Cloud‘s is spastic, yet authentic, and The Poxy Boggards‘ is multimedia overdone. Altogether inedible, nae? Surely you will not listen to all these. So, settle for the brand you know: The Irish Rovers party through this high disrespect with brave militaristic merriment. They make Irish sound musical. And their instrumental outro is just madness.