Promises of bottomless bottle tipping may be a cry for help, or a comic reflection of our denial of a serious social problem. But gotta sing about it.
BLUE ALERT Killfuck rap out their disappointment with traditional holiday observations and figure a “Drunk Christmas” is enough to dump on the tree skirt. It’s angry, but not drunk angry. I read present envy.
Also fed up with the bourgeoisie are Tribe of the Vague offering “Drunk for Christmas” as a reasonable reaction to the mercantile madnes. It’s UK pop flipped on its arse and fondled with boyish tomfoolery.
Gaz Brookfield keeps us ‘cross the pond for his “Getting Drunk for Christmas.” He makes it sound like a fun party for him and the mates with a bouncy rock: 1 part garage, 2 parts alt, 1/2 part folk.
Watch’a got planned for Christmas? Bottles! Yea verily, it’s a tradition to buy, imbibe, and belch up the birthday of Godboy. Or, more often, it girds the loins of those unwilling to face family, loneliness, and a general lack of purpose while trudging through black, bleak, endless nights. Bottoms up!
Dave Hutchins captures the blues while rock-beating on his guitar for a better than average amateur offering “I’ll be Drinking for Christmas.” Hutch knows.
More thoughtfully folk Scott Gagner jazzes up “I’ll be Drinking This Christmas.” It’s a spiraling snowflake of a song, so more sipping than slurping over the barstool, fellas.
Kristian Bush (it’s a guy) spells it out eff-ay-em-eye-ell-why (let’s deal with calamitous Christmas clan clashes later) in a modern country carol of high production values. When songs like “Thinking about Drinking for Christmas” sound this good i tend to hear encouragement to excess drinking, but to each hic own.
All those songs about alcoholic drinks remind us that Christmastime is about celebrating full out, red solo cups tipped to the ceiling, regrets solidifying while inhibitions melt. And i wouldn’t spend so much time on the subject if there weren’t so many songs about it. Originally i figured about to offer you a month of half drunk Christmas songs and half stoned Christmas songs, but we can’t stop composing ourselves in re alcoholism. So let’s indulge in a fun bit of slang to denote each entry (alphabetical, natch from about right to zozzled) but we’ll be climbing the stages of toasting to tipsy to totaled to a friend of Bill’s to hungover to rehab, while also slipping in some drunk daddies, Santies, Jesuses, and maybe Rudolph or someone else. Damn son, i need as shower already and i hain’t even started.
One of the easiest targets, songsmiths–i’m talking to you, is parodying ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas.’ And while Harold Swords fulfills the comedy needs of the few with “I’ll be Drunk for Christmas,” we can do better–like smurfswacker’s entry which splashes in a dash of class. Or Hilary who throws her diva range all over her take off (warning: karaoke soundtrack/no picture).
Face it, most of this stuff is going to be low brow hollering fun: Zach Smith plays BLUE ALERTadolescent humor to a pretty folk echo in “I’ll be Drunk This Christmas.” Funny.
Peter and the Test tube Babies also scream “I’m Getting Pissed for Christmas” a la punk. But it’s just one more day of sucking it down.
But Curt Brash poses “I’ll be Drunk for Christmas” with jazzy scat and cool lackadaisicality. It’s barfly Tom Waits, or–you know–Tom Waits.
Then comes the garage gentleness from The Blood Moons, which turns their “I’ll be Drunk for Christmas” into a bar band anthem that sells this sad sentiment. It’s morose and hopeless but you can dance to it.
The punch bowl may be the place to start the holiday party, then work up to all the booze we’ve lately consumed. But everyone finds their way back here eventually. This is where you say your goodbyes. So goodbye month of Christmas drinking!
No better place to put that holiday reminder toast: drink to get through these days, but keep count. From our a cappella boys Straight No Chaser, “To Christmas! (The Drinking Song).” (A grand reprise of this category, but does it sound like a sea chanty to anyone else?)
Hee haw styling informs Cledus T. Judd’s country comedy with knee-slapping and sides-holding and eye-rolling in place of line dancing. “Hazel’s Homemade Hallelujah Punch” is a merry tradition purportedly without alcohol, but with the favor of the Lord.
Ancient Order of the Killer Owl mix pop with psychedelia for overwsweet punch with blurring after effects in “The Christmas Punch Song.” It’s far out.
Straight outta witness protection Daniel Brouse also stirs up mind-melting electronica with a bubblegum beat in “Holiday Punch (Christmas Song).” It’s a jeremiad about over drinking, which we’ll explore next month. Guy thinks he’s in outer space (except for the evidence of gravity at the end of the video), i reckon.
Carbon Leaf brings us to a close with “Red Punch/Green Punch.” It’s a bluegrassy family home movie with sweet Old World reflection and a hardy refrain that celebrates all our lives.
Toast Noel! But with what beverage? I’ve been fermenting over this a while, and let’s whine about the adult grape drink not address’d ’til now.
Ziggy Rankin may be metaphorical here, singing about a girl, but riddim is riddim. In “Caroline (Sweetest Wine)” the music moves the way winos believe they do when fortified with sippage.
Promising title–“The Ultimate Last Wine Song 2016,” but it turns out the Norwich tavern The Last Wine Bar is merely musically Xmas card-ing their patrons online. Damn skippy talented song, though.
Canada’s own The Yule Be Sorrys contextualize the consumption with their own update on ‘Holly and Ivy’ with “The Sherry and the Claret” about holiday hollering. Medieval frivolousness.
Let’s mellow way on down the eve with Jason Gleason mush-mouthing “Sleigh Bells and Wine,” where the sleigh awaits, the fire amasses, and the word snow has five syllables. Daddy, oh.
Grown ups of refinement prefer wine to beer, at least as an ostentation. (Wine drinkers say things like: oaky, fruity, earthy; beer drinkers say things like: burp!)
The holiday process of boiling said libation with spices goes back centuries and continents. Glühwein is a favey-fave amongst the Deutshe. So I must include at least a couple not-so-much-mitt-du-English songs like Die Blauen Jung’s happy drunk parody of ‘Jingle Bells’ “Der Glühwein Song,” Thomas Dotterweich’s swinging parody of ‘Rocking Around’ “Der Glühwein Song,” punchxmas’s burbling melancholic “Oh du schöne Weihnachtszeit,” Kalk Stein’s oddly talky children’ rock “Glühwein,” and Sternschuppe’s rad pop “Komm zu mir auf einen Glühwein.” But let’s finish for the language challenged in English: John Stapleton folk rocks “It’s Christmas (Glühwein for the Ladies)” in his rocking chair in his front room (wait, that’s a nervous tic). I do believe he’s judging the alcohol intake here, not like those cheery Germans.
Okay, one more. Miss Behavin’ believes that western music is that stuff from musicals as she celebrates “Glühwein.” It’s a barn dancing promise of more fun.
Back to British. ‘Blurred Lines’ has been mocked with “Mulled Lines,” here by Greg and Chris Smith. Well Robin thick mayn’t be Brit, but he’s classy in that repressed way. An honorable parody.
And now for something completely different. The “Simplee Mulled Wine Mix Song” is advertisement for a product you problee never heard of. But it’s catchy bluegrass carousing.
Beer at Christmas has a downside: forgotten presents, uninhibited opinions, vomit in the hanging fern….
Angry songs usually just lean into punk, like Fear’s “Another Christmas Beer.” Few actual accidents of mischance trouble this number, though.
And Bah and the Humbugs’ “Christmas Beer” extols the magical powers of the brewski, but the suburban-dad punk sounds a bit tetchy.
Sunny Sweeney changes the tempo with sloshy honky tonk in her “1 More Christmas Beer.” The stink of life’s limitations and regret swings and sways like a denizen of the tavern two past cut-off.
Banging the guitar with heartfelt country David Hutchins wails (more coffee house than dive bar) “I’ll be Drinking for Christmas.” Mostly just about keeping the glass full. But we all know he’s a beer guy with poor decision-making skills.
Slightly more upbeat country with a far more hopeless message is “Christmas in a Beer Joint” by Red State Update. The boys are just having fun, but can we laugh at their depiction of rural pain? Me first.
Let country do what it does best, reflect on the broken life of the lower class. And wink. Gord Bamford tells the old tale of family tragedy in “Daddy’s Beer.” Follow the stages of grief through this toe tapper.
Some beer songs are in anticipation, or within the first couple rounds: upbeat.
Friday Night Music Club has a rousing light-punk (same anger, less cacophony) number in “The Christmas Beer Song.” It’s all fun and games until the next round.
Thorsø All-Stars from Thorsø, Denmark have posited a polite cowboy party with “Country Christmas Beer.” It’s their first song in English and they’ve worked hard musically to represent our Wild West bad manners.
Another big party is delineated by The Irish Rovers in their “Christmas in the Ale House.” What a great Celtic gathering.
Less glowingly glorious, The Bastions get a bit loud and naughty with “Beer, Jugs, & Bratwurst.” Oompah is a bit like the I-need-to-fit-a-toilet-soon rhythm, ist es nicht so?
Referencing beer but almost cheerfully anti-beer is the Christmas remix of Trailer Choir’s ‘Rockng the Beer Gut’ into “Rocking the Beer Gut (Holly Day Version)” wherein Santa claims he’s not fulla suds. Nice rollickin’ country-fried humor.
Even bad choices under the influences of beer seem fun. In re: “Christmas with Beer Theme Song” by Christmas with Beer makes the failures in life tolerable, amusing even. Thanks!
Taking a sudsy breather from the hard stuff, beer (and other grainy fortified brews) may apply what the elves in Santa’s backroom call a buzz: just enough of an edge to make musicians think they’re funny. So make way for a barful of parodies.
Brian of the WGAR morning show (Cleveland’s Great Lakes ale) “Christmas Ale Song.” Give it a 5.
