Two Leftish Holiday Songs for Marxists, RINOs and Other Vermin*
Most of us like to think of Christmas as the season of peace and goodwill — a time when even Republicans and Christian nationalists trade beautiful cards to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Sadly, a good many of them seem to forget the lessons Jesus taught after he was born, which tracks their approach to so many kids being born today. I suppose that's understandable. After all, the "love they neighbor" message that Jesus promoted tends to clash with holiday photos of the entire family waving assault rifles in front of a Christmas tree.
When you stop to think about it, Christmas has always been one of our "wokest" holidays. Jesse Watters and the other bigots at Fox News can scream all they want about blasphemous depictions of Santa as a black man in a wheelchair or nutcrackers with rainbow flag hats, but I'd wager the vast majority of holiday songs are more about such treasured values as fellowship, generosity and enjoying one another's company than about bashing people based on race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. With that in mind, allow me to share just a couple of "woke" holiday tunes that I've run across today and happen to enjoy.
"This Year My Wishlist Only Says Peace," by theCatherines
First up is a song by the German "pop jangle" band theCatherines, a sweet and timely holiday tune called "This Year My Wishlist Only Says Peace." It's got a message that's always appropriate and particularly relevant this year. As one reviewer notes,
The track is an indie pop gem with jangling sensibilities and sleigh bells aplenty. More importantly, at a time of cheer and joy, this German ensemble reminds us that there are people less fortunate than us. Once again, theCatherines have created a glistening pop song with a deep and meaningful message.
"Santa, Stay Home," by U.S. Girls, featuring Rich Morel
This one's actually a couple of years old and it's kind of a frontal attack on much of what this blog works to celebrate, but proposing that Christmas be eliminated due to its huge carbon footprint is going to have the gang at Fox News simultaneously clutching their pearls and screaming for the smelling salts. Formed in 2007, U.S. Girls is a Toronto-based, one-woman project by Meghan Remy. I don't necessarily endorse everything this song's proposing, but she raises some valid points, and it's kind of fun to try to "own the MAGAs" for a change.
*Hard as it is to believe, one of our former presidents recently echoed Adolph Hitler and several other dictators by publicly referring to his political enemies as "vermin" and threatening to "root them out" if returned to office. Care to guess which former president it was?
As someone who followed Billboard's music charts religiously in the the 1970s and '80s, I was taken aback by yesterday's news that the #1 song on this week's Hot 100 is a 65-year-old Christmas song by Brenda Lee. Well, Tuesday's the day when Billboard releases each week's full Hot 100 list, and today's chart blew my mind yet again.
In what probably has to be considered good news for seasonal music enthusiasts, six of this week's Top 10, 21 of this week's Top 40 and 26 of this week's Top 50 songs are holiday tunes. (Remarkably, no holiday songs appear in positions 51 through 100.)
Most of the holiday songs that made the Hot 100 this week are vintage tracks. In other words, they're old. The average age of this week's Top 10 songs is 32 years old. Four of the Top 10 tunes were released before I'd entered kindergarten.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised by my reaction to these developments. I should really be elated. I love Christmas music, and I prefer music of all kinds from the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s to the kind of dreck that's dominated the charts since the turn of the millennium. Still, I find it unsettling that Burl Ives currently has the #6 song in the nation. I mean, it's terrific, but I feel like I've entered a strange and frightening new dimension. (The fact that Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is the #2 song in land is just flat out horrifying with no silver lining. Ditto for "Last Christmas" at #5.)
All of this is the result of a long series of changes to the way Billboard tabulates its Hot 100. Back when I followed the charts each week, the Hot 100 included only those songs that had been officially released as singles and their chart positions rose or fell based on radio airplay and singles sales. Today, few songs are even available as singles, so any recorded song can be considered. Positions are based on a host of factors, including not only radio airplay but also downloads and streaming service data. (For a good explanation of the evolving Hot 100 formula, see HERE.) That makes it easy to see what's happened to this week's Hot 100. The start of the holiday season led millions of folks to start playing their sentimental favorites on Spotify, and suddenly a 78-year-old woman has the #1 hit in the country. That's actually kind of sweet. And I'd much rather see Brenda Lee at #1 than another damned song by Taylor Swift or Drake.
I'm starting to feel much better now. I only hope Brenda can keep Mariah out of the #1 spot as effectively as Prince's "Purple Rain" blocked Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" back in 1984. Not that I think about that very much anymore ...
I can't remember the last time I watched regular broadcast television. We don't get TV at our house, and while I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube and some of the a la carte paid channels, I haven't had to suffer through American TV commercials in what seems like ages. Some of the old commercials I remember were pretty good. Most of them weren't.
It seems things are different in Britain, where advertisers compete every Christmas to produce the most moving, sentimental and lovely commercials.
I found this clip when I opened YouTube this morning. It's a compilation featuring the best holiday ads now playing across the pond. Have a look if you feel like tearing up a little, though I'd limit yourself to no more than two in one sitting unless you've got some extra insulin lying around. The last two clips, starting at 11:35, are especially good.
Why aren't our stores competing for the high ground like this? Maybe our presidential candidates could take a page from this book?
Music history was made this week when 78-year-old Brenda Lee topped Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart of the nation's most popular songs with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," a record she released 65 years ago. With this achievement, Lee becomes the oldest artist ever to top the Hot 100. Her song breaks the records for longest time after its original release and longest time since its Hot 100 debut to reach the top of the charts.
Written by Johnny Marks and produced by Owen Bradley, the song first entered the Hot 100 at #64 on December 12, 1960, following four Top 10 singles that Lee placed on the chart in the previous 12 months. Her Christmas song peaked at #14 two weeks later. Following changes in the formula by which the Hot 100 is tabulated, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" re-entered the Hot 100 in December 2019 and has returned in each subsequent holiday season. Lee was 15 years old when she recorded the tune.
This is only the third holiday song in Billboard history to top the Hot 100. The first was "The Chipmunk Song," by The Chipmunks with David Seville, in 1958. The second was Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which spent combined total of 12 weeks at #1 during 2019-22.
This song is Lee's third #1 hit on the Hot 100. The first, "I'm Sorry," which became her signature song, spent three weeks in the top position beginning July 18, 1960. It was followed by "I Want to Be Wanted," which made it to #1 three months later, during the same week I was born.
The first official music video of the song was recorded only this year to coincide with the 65th anniversary of its initial release. The video features cameo appearances by Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood.
Three weeks to go until the Big Day, and I'm back with a little information about the next three tracks from my latest holiday mix, Christmas Cheer:
Track 20 Hanukkah Mambo, The Yule Logs (2012)
This is the fourth song I’ve included in my annual mixes from The Yule
Logs, a band based in Chico, California. Known as the “hardest working band in snow business” and the “greatest
Christmas band of all time,” The Yule Logs have made spirits bright each
holiday season for close to 20 years with their festive brand of original
holiday songs and storied live performances.
Based in Chico, California, the band consists of Kirt Lind, Marty
Parker, Jake Sprecher, and Maurice Spencer. In addition to their traditional
string of live shows during the holiday season, The Yule Logs have released six
albums of mostly original material, all of which is top-quality and lots of fun
to boot.
Unfortunately, late last year the band announced in a social media post
that they were calling it quits:
Hey friends. As you
may have heard, we’ve decided to call it a day as a band. Time marches on, ya
know? Thank you so much for 17 amazing seasons. Take care, and see you around
town.
I’m disappointed because I never did get
to see them perform live, and because I was looking forward to another album or
two. But they leave a rich legacy and they did provide lots of folks with a
great deal of fun and merriment.
I’ve included songs by The Yule Logs on three of my previous mixes.
This one’s the fourth, and it’s also the second Hanukkah tune. I try to include
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa songs in my compilations when I can, although it isn’t
always easy to find strong entries. Fortunately, The Yule Logs have released a
number of great Hanukkah tunes over the years.
I’m posting two mini players, below, featuring two of The Yule Logs
albums — The Yule Logs (2009), which includes “Hanukkah Mambo,” and their most
recent release, Fezziwig (2021). There’s also a link to their Bandcamp site, where, for a limited time, you can purchase all six of their albums for
just $22.50. That would be a deal at twice the price!
Track 21 is another song-poem (surprise!), produced by the Columbine publishing mill and credited to Ms. Lee Scott. This
tune was featured on Columbine’s compilation “The Now Sounds of Today,” which was
released sometime around 1976. The lyrics were penned by Myrtle Moorhouse, who
seems to have been smitten by a handsome man she saw riding a red skidoo. It’s
not a Christmas song per se, but it’s
got a skidoo in it and those require snow and winter weather — so what the heck!
Truth be told, I’d say that Ms. Moorhouse wasn’t thinking so much about
Christmas when she scrawled out these lyrics. We all know what good ol’ Myrtle
had on her mind.
I don’t have much more to offer in the way of background on this
track; about all I can do is point you toward some additional tunes Lee Scott
performed. (WARNING: Most of Ms. Scott’s
other performances fall short of the standard she set with “The Red Skidoo.” If
that doesn’t frighten you, well, you’re made of strong stuff, indeed.) Some of
her material is available through the links listed below. Additional titles
appear HERE.
Columbine apparently offered its customers a little more than just a 45
RPM pressing of their joint efforts. They also produced hundreds of compilation
albums like “The Now Sounds of Today,” most with equally exciting titles. This
was no doubt intended to suggest they were committed to promoting and not
merely creating the various tunes they produced. God knows what they did with
these compilation albums once they rolled off the presses. I can’t believe many
of them were sold or that anyone actually paid much attention to them, but you
can usually find lots of them on sale via eBay “for a song.”
Rosie Perez is a singer, dancer, choreographer and activist who’s
appeared in more than 40 feature films and 70 television shows. A Brooklyn
native of Puerto Rican ancestry, Perez first captured the public’s attention
playing Tina in Spike Lee’s 1989 film “Do the Right Thing.” The following year, she started a
four-year run as a dancer and choreographer on the Fox sketch comedy show “In Living Color.” She handled the choreography for a number of
popular music videos by artists including Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, LL Cool J
and Bobby Brown.
Perez was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress
for her work in the 1993 film Fearless, and also starred in “White Men Can’t Jump,” starring Wesley Snipes. She made her
Broadway debut in 2002 in Terrence McNally’s “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair
de Lune.” In 2014-15 Perez served as panelist and co-host on The View.
Perez is also known for her activism and charitable work, particularly
around Puerto Rican rights, HIV/AIDS prevention and support for the arts. She’s
been a busy and productive woman over the past 30+ years, and yet she still had
the time to pass along her holiday greetings.
That’s all for today. I’ll be back soon with more.
