State Thirty: Arkansas

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Now this is what I am talking about: some grade school teacher at Iglesia(?) somewhere in AK. She apparently makes up songs on her own youtube channel (like Kate Micucci’s character in Raising Hope) and here she’s got kids singing and acting out for “Arkansas Christmas.” It’s a madhouse, a MADHOUSE! Somewhere in there is some message about shopping on Black Friday and AR’s Xmas being “natural.”
“O Little Town of Boggy Creek” is Sam Stokes’s stab at local lore, some creature hiding in the swamps (at least the subject matter of D-list movies like the one Mystery Science Theater 3000 made sport of). How droll to use Christian music to madcap the monster’s tale!
More legitly, Dan Schafer (from that great compilation Christmas Across America) sings “Arkansas Angel.” It’s barely a Christmas reference, but it’s soooo pretty with tenored up tones and fantastic fiddlin’ i want to open it again and again.
Now to prove that news shows love the local carols, i present you with “Christmas Time In Arkansas.” Ned Perme, the song’s creator, is a weatherman from Little Rock, who rocks in his spare time. You can find his version on the ‘tube. Here, as intro’d by an actual anchor, Terry Rose sings. I know–it sounds like a warmed over Lifetime movie soundtrack. But this song was nominated for a regional Emmy. And its album, Songs for the Season, raised money for National Kidney Foundation of Arkansas and The Amercian Heart Association. Channel 7, Little Rock, On Your Side!

State Twenty-Nine: Missouri

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
I’m not upset that the Bible Belt here has so little Christmas to sing about Branson (except for Lallie Bridges’s laughable copycat Christmas jingle), Springfield, Jeff CIty, or the Show Me State itself. I am not mad, but i am disappointed.
Christmas Across America has the chameleonic Diedre Jenkins’s number “Missouri Christmas Card,” which soulfully beatifies family and friendship, beating on the guitar-box Indigo Girls style. It’s an “anywhere” song and doesn’t make you yearn for MO.
Let’s just focus on the capitol. “Christmas in St. Louis” is sung by Randy Mayfield, an ordained minister who just has to sing! His bigs are national anthems for local sports, opening for Christian acts, and worldwide tours with other countries’ symphonies. Sing it, Rand-man! And make it all ‘Eighties pop country with tremulo backed up by harsh electric guitar riffs. ‘Cause that’s what Missourians do.

Happy Christmas, Veterans

It’s a National Holiday Today, based on what happened today’s date nearly a century ago.
BLUE ALERT–a few of these ditties are angry or at least unconcerned about the occasional profanity.
Traditionally we sing “Happy Christmas (War is Over),” but who needs that repetitive blather by some pacifist?

Most Christmas songs about soldiers are miserable miss-you affairs like “I’ll Be Brave This Christmas” (Big Daddy Weave) or “Waiting for Christmas” (Melodie Chrittenden Kirkpatrick). Or even angry send-my-baby-home country screaming like Melissa Ethridge’s “Christmas in America.”

More upbeat stuff is performed by military bands, like The United States Air Force Concert Band And Singing Sergeants (i like their “Mr. Santa“).
Sometimes we get messages from the GIs in the shit, like “Christmas in Vietnam” (Johnny and Jon) and “Christmas in Afghanistan” (Rucka Rucka Ali). Pretty non-Jesus stuff.
Except i do like one boots on the ground parody from Zack Applewhite taking off “Up On the Rooftop” (no one does that one). From John Yossarian to Gomer Pyle to Quintan McHale, we find a sense of humor ameliorates the madness of wartimes. And that’s what Christmas is sometimes about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61bPptqRyz8

State Twenty-Eight: Illinois

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERIC-MAS
Prairie State don’t preach too much about itself.
Sylvia Green Robinson lovingly pounds out the musical version of her middle school poem “Christmas in Illinois” for us on the ‘tube. It’s a heartfelt pre-teen polemic warm up with her newly adult warble. E for effort, SGR. (Neither an A nor an F.)

[A gentle reminder: I’m still not allowing for sports teams goofin’ on ‘The 12 Days’ or whatnot. Yeah, the Bears, Cubs, Blackhawks, etc. all have ‘senses of humor.’ But those stuttering travesties expire quickly year-to-year, and they belong to their own sub-genre niche outside of novelty. I need odd music by musicians, whether it be good or bad.]

And you came for the odd, did you not? The how about the “Christmas in Peoria” song?! It’s just a quick gag on a Top Ten list from the David Letterman Show, but Josh Groban sings it so… i mean… damn.

But, what about Chicago, where musical styles are born? Well, there are a few testifying ’bout the Nativity here. You’d think the band Chicago woulda mentioned their namesake in all that crappy Holiday album noise-making thing they do… but, no!  If you desire the appropriate ‘soul,’ then check out J. Daphaney’s “Christmas in Chicago.” In “Christmas in Chicago” Rikesh and Jason break down the neighborhoods, in a playful rockin’ rap battle, to determine where to have fun. For that easy listening middle of the road mudsick, i recommend “Christmas in Chicago” by Silver by Fire. It leans into soul, but stops short of 1970s’ senior citizens’ dance stylings. To get your head straight, rock out to 7th Heaven’s “Merry Christmas in Chicago.” It’s overcooked (not raw), but fulfills that need you might have for 1980s’ pop vs. punk playfulness.
Now Leon Russell, that Rock’n Roll Hall of Famer sideman, makes music good. His “Christmas in Chicago” is some rockin’ blues for the yule, mmm-m. It sounds like Chicago, hog killer that it is.

State Twenty-Seven: Iowa

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Middle America! Corn Belt! Bible Belt! Santa’s Belt covering his belly of corn!
Matthew Vaughan leans back on what looks like a college parking structure and, between flipping pages reading, strums his three chords to sing The Iowan State Song to the tune of ‘O Christmas Tree’ (which he refers to as Lauriger Horatius). Clever stuff. Bit sophomoric (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
britehorn.com threw together a political spoof of carols an election ago. I don’t cater to these, like i won’t address team parodies… but it’s fairly funny and mostly timely now. It’s the so-called “Fox News Christmas Album: Republican Christmas in Iowa.” Ha, two thousand twelve, ha.
Because i’m having fun hardly finding Hawkeye stuff, I have to give a shout out to a couple local yokel Des Moinesians: ‘Biggy B’ and ‘K David.’ their “Christmas List, Yo” busted my nut with chuckles. I am going to totally reference that at another time on this blog.
Now I can’t go Mulberry Lane’s “Christmas in Iowa,” because they have identical NB and WI versions and, yes it’s bouncy and fun for a XXIst C noel, but it’s got no statewide identity and i… i just can’t Okay?
So I’m left with “Winter in Iowa” by Roger Boggs. He’s raw, he’s modern folk, he’s a mash up of Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan (oh look, he’s got a harmonica!). I dig his love life attitudes and his playin’ into the wind, whether or not anyone’s listenin’ (the mark of a true musician). His song feels like the season. Button up!

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.

 

State Twenty-Five: Wisconsin

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Mulberry Lane does a smiley, bubblegummy rendition of “Christmas in Wisconsin.” But they’re disqualified because the same exact song is sung to sub in Nebraska AND Iowa. Cheaters!
The Mears Brothers Band list as many municipalities as they can in their “Christmas in Wisconsin,” making this a school lesson more’n a country carol. They perform a clean, by-the-numbers professional pop kind of country. You need your clean boots on to dance to it.
If you’re looking for the Northerner wit, I’d like you to meet Courtney Wosick. Her “Hey Der Hi Der Ho Der” to the tune of Mele Kalikimaka is a short, no-disrespect funny way to access the WI accent for the holidays. Home movie quality, however, so treat it like an impulse peruse.
Nah nah nah nah and fa la la la, my friends. It’s time for more a cappella. That collegiate kind like we have already seen. All those boys organized and simultaneous and harmonized… sigh. So let’s visit University of Wisconsin-Madison and check out the Mad Hatters. They bring crowds to their feet with their Michael Jackson, Timberlake, U2 interpretations, and more. Eight albums available on their website (though you don’t get to buy a nifty red blazer). So here, now is “Wisconsin Christmas” with quick wit and a little walk-through their world from cheese curds to Bucky Badger. Make room for your toes to tap.

State Twenty-Four: Michigan

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Day Twenty-Three: Michigan
It’s a dark place of failed American Dreams, it’s a lush land of scenic hunting and paranoid manor-holders… I don’t know what you are: Wolverine State of Great Lakes/Peninsulas.
And it took a while to find you some plum pudding plainsongs, but when i did… Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice!
The prettiest and most Chamber of Congress worthy is Brian d’Arcy James (that guy in all those musicals!) off his solo album From Christmas Eve to Christmas Morn (which is the longest night of the year). You can buy a download of “Christmas in Michigan” from his website, or see it because some big fan ‘tubed it. Holy holly, that guy’s got pipes!
Now, you can help me. Another posting by the Meijer Choral Group, “A Michigan Christmas Card,” is a dearly pleasant piece reeking of community and adult pop. But who/what is this? PR for some megalomaniacal corp? Quick cash for some kids with a recording studio? The lifelong dream of some tunesmith(s) (Robertson-Farnsworth)? I must know! For 1985 this is pleasingly inoffensive.
Paul Ritchie, who has written for Xmas in KY and KS, rhymes ‘Michigan’ with ‘wish again’ in “Christmas in Michigan.” You can sample a bit of it on Youtube or buy it i guess. The melody is a bit lazy but i do dig the turn of lyric.
Dan Adamini wants to get more narrowly regional with “Christmas in Upper Michigan,” but his cliche-carpeted walk in the woods makes me shiver. Setting your keyboard to Church Organ doesn’t festivate the tune, dude.
Dewey Longuski wins for most in-jokes with his “Christmas Time in Michigan is Here.” (Land of the Hand?!) But his twanging, children’s piano tinkling, nasaling funtimes is a discordant diorama for demograghics. Instead of a being a cutesy song for the very young, or an alt song for the recently young, or even an MOR for the Boomers, this seems to be a song for childlike adult news announcers to underplay their local news outros.
So, let’s go to Detroit (no one else is). Karen Newman sings “Christmas Eve on Woodward Avenue,” a real show stopper full of little cherubs backing up the talent. Adorably twee. But this gets a little too local for me; not so much referentially, as pathologically.
Lest you think these people have no sense of humor for the holidays (Hello, Da Yoopers!), lemme drop a “Christmas in Detroit” number on you. Genesis the Church has set up the most unlikely looking entourage of white hiphoppers gassing local lyrics to ‘Christmas in Hollis.’ Love the scenery, gaped at the gentirfication, and worried about the small mentions of “The D-E-T.” So, not it.
Finally, I’m going to double down on the dark. As I did with Ohio, I’m going unwashed after hours club music. “Christmas Day in Flint, Michigan” by Beth Cahill from Songs for Sarah is not christmas at all. And she’s Canadian. It’s a dark folk lullaby, a real woman’s song. I insist it’s listenable. Merry Mary.

State Twenty-Three: Indiana

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Honorable mention to Tony Wolf for “The Indiana Christmas Song.” There’s no Indiana in it, but there is humor that moved me to the depths of my stockings. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Booby Prize goes to “Somewhere Hovering Over Indiana,” a children’s song about waiting for Santa. If you don’t recognize it, it’s a selection from A Christmas Story–The Musical. It was nommed for a Tony and got good reviews… but come on guys! This is not how to run The Great White Way! Retreads of mediocre classics with unimaginative wordplay blows egg nog!
Runner up goes to Bob and Tom fast and loose with derogatory references in “If Santa was a Hoosier.” Humorful ho-downery.
How ’bout an honorable mention for some authentic kids’ Christmas music? Dierdre Jenkins (from Christmas Across America) gets silly with “Hoosier Gonna Kiss for Christmas.” The orchestration adds a theatricality to the fun, though those oboes are creeping me out–like this really is some weird mystery we need to solve: “Who?” “Who is kissing whom?” I gotta know!
My main Holiday Award Holder is Straight No Chaser’s “Indiana Christmas.” These guys were a glee club at Indiana University and someone dropped a video of their “12 Days of Christmas” on the ‘tube (nearly 10 years after they made it) which led to record deals and tours. Notes sharp as icicles, harmony warm as loved ones snuggled up to the hearth, the message as merry as it is melancholy… Call me a fan.

State Twenty-Two: Ohio

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, bitches!
Brandston altrocks “Christmas in Ohio” as a metaphor for how much you cheer me up, babe. Which is all poetical and slick, but not holiday.
Laura Elder has sent up “Christmas in Killarney” by singing about Ohio. She’s all home-canned sweet preserves, she is. Irish humor is the best, all dancing and laughing and hitting below the belt.
Chantilly Lace has got a startlingly sinister bit of nostalgia entitled “Christmas in Cleveland.” Something, so the song relates, went wrong with young love around the holidays way back when, and it sounds like like we’re about to suffer a snow-covered body count by some Santa-looking killer. Well, that’s my read on it.
Keeping up with that new sound the kids like in their rock and their roll (’90s-style), I’m gonna pop open my advent to The Raveonettes’ “Christmas in Cleveland” from their album Wishing You a Rave Christmas. These are, wait for it, Danish indie rockers (purportedly influenced by the Everly Bros). I like the garage post punk noise here. It reminds you that Christmas is about young people lost in the world… y’know like Jo-boy and Mary-baby looking for some friendly refuge for birthin’. Sune Rose and Sharin Foo are old school cool, despite their overmodulated indecipherable lyric-noise. Don’t join in and sing along!