Offbeat Holiday Music: Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney

Ella Fitzgerald: Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney

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All week long, the picture above has been sitting on the sidebar, and you probably never suspected that anyone had a song for it. In fact, not just anyone, but the great Ella Fitzgerald herself. The song had acquired legendary status at one time. Fitzgerald sings it with the innocence of a child, but someone in record company land had a filthy mind, and decided the song was too risqué to release. In fact, it only came out after Fitzgerald’s death in 1966. Personally, I think you have to work pretty hard to get something naughty out of this, but you be the judge.

Offbeat Holiday Music: How to Make Gravy

Paul Kelly: How to Make Gravy

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While this song isn't necessarily "offbeat," it's one that you won't
normally hear during the North American version of holidays. Paul
Kelly is an Australian singer/songwriter who I think is massively
underrated in the northern hemisphere. In this song the narrator, Joe,
is in prison, and is making a phone call to his friend Dan. Joe is
genuinely regretting and lamenting whatever he did to get himself in
trouble, and is asking Dan to kiss his kids on Christmas, to look
after his girlfriend, to give his best to a number of other friends,
and to not screw up the gravy for the roast. As one of my friends from
down-under pointed out, Australians celebrate Christmas just as the
English do, but it is summer during that time of year so after
Christmas dinner everyone hits the beach. Except for those who are
incarcerated, of course.


Guest post by Rock Star Aimz

Offbeat Holiday Music: Santa Claus On a Helicopter

Wing: Santa Claus on a Helicopter

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I wasn't going to post another song this week, but I accidently scrolled through this section of my database and…well…

I learned about Wing from popdose.com a few years ago. Wikipedia tells us "Wing is a New Zealand singer of Hong Kong origin. She is known for her unique, offbeat singing style." See? Fits the theme!

Wing has released 19 albums to date. After listening to this sample, you too will find this fact amazing.

Offbeat Holiday Music: A J-Rock Christmas

DBSK: Silent Night

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B'z: Itsuka No Merry Christmas

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GLAY : Karera no HOLY X'MAS

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Kiyoharu: Christmas

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Tell me you're surprised that I'm posting J-Rock Christmas songs. I've got lo-o-o-ots! Clearly, being a Buddhist/Shinto nation doesn't preclude embracing the Christmas spirit. I can personally attest that in early November, the Starbucks in Kanazawa, Japan, was cheerily blasting out Dean Martin's Let It Snow! despite the warm fall weather.

Japanese musicians seem to crank out just as much Christmas music as their western counterparts (probably for the same reasons). The quality is comparable as well, but I've spared you the truly horrific stuff, like the cover of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by the metal band Nightmare.

The first selection isn't actually J-Rock, though, it's K-Pop. DBSK was a highly popular Korean boy band who made it big in Japan about 6 years ago, but recently broke up. Everyone's holiday collection needs a German carol sung in Japanese by a Korean boy band, right? You'd be the only one on your block playing it, that's for sure.

The next two are pretty straightforward, original Christmas-themed songs by big-name J-Rock bands. Every now and then, the seasonal English words shine through: dah dah dah dah dah Merry Christmas!

That last one, by one of my fav singers, Kiyoharu, sounds like the kind of Christmas song you'd play just before deciding to top yourself. I mean, I do actually like it, but it's awfully grim going for what's supposed to be an uplifting season. Apparently some of the lyrics translate to: I made a wish and touched my rosary; let's kiss. I smiled at the transparent blue orchid. You are my Christmas, running along my frozen skin. Er, yeah, well it does have the requisite (English) holiday words in it:

Merry Christmas!

Offbeat Holiday Music: A Christmas Duel

The Hives and Cyndi Lauper: A Christmas Duel

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Yes, the 2008 release date makes this post a rule-breaker. But it was a single, and too explicit to play on the radio; it got no reception whatsoever, as far as I can tell, and thus, it meets the general spirit of obscurity here - i.e., most folks have never heard it. As such, in the spirit of the season, and of punk in general, I'm sharing anyway, just this once.

And you just gotta hear this one. Because how's this for holiday cheer: a drunken punk rocker duet which cites both sincere death threats and sexual encounters with two generations of in-laws, and - though it starts as a raggedly tender ballad - goes on to combine a crashing parody of the Phil Spector-era holiday popsingle sound and language rich enough to need a warning label. The narrative premise is, essentially, that Christmas offers forgiveness, or at least, that the snow and celebration drown out the filth for a while. It's like a Sid and Nancy Christmas special, albeit more melodic.

Offbeat Holiday Music: Feed the World (Do They Know It’s Christmas Time?)

Far (feat. Chino Moreno): Feed the World (Do They Know It‘s Christmas Time?)

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Though significantly less grandiose than the execution and process of the original, charity is still charity, no matter how brief a studio session may accompany it. The early aughts saw an explosion of trans-genre and cover albums in the worlds of punk, metal, alternative, emo, and pop, and one recurring instance of that was the holiday album. In 2003, Immortal records released A Santa Cause: It’s a Punk Rock Christmas, on which some pretty big swingers contributed their rock sensibilities to the spirit of Christmas by raising money to alleviate HIV and AIDS suffering in children. This type of album can, at more times than not, resemble suffering through a friend’s endeavor for his sake, especially when the singers open wide with heart--and reveal a severe lack of tone. Far and Moreno (of Deftones fame) team up in this famous 1984 charity song to bring back just as much awkward melody and sincere intention as the original.

Guest post by Andrew

Offbeat Holiday Music: Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher

Elton John: Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher

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Here's a no-brainer for Songs Banned At The Mall, because we all know that politics is the third rail when it comes to Christmas themes. And this song's particularly nasty at that—nasty for a reason, though. It's from Billy Elliott, the Musical, sung by the striking British union miners, and you can read the historical details in relationship to the play in this (non-Wikipedia!) article. Thatcher, the Conservative Party prime minister at the time, waged and won a battle to break the political power of British trade unions by closing most of England's coal mines. Sir Elton John and Lee Hall, the lyricist for the 2005 musical, pull no punches in expressing exactly what the miners (and their children) thought of her.

Sir EJ's version was added to the rerelease of his own album, Peachtree Road.

Offbeat Holiday Music: Macy's Window and Sleigh Ride

Paul Revere & The Raiders: Macy's Window

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The Ventures: Sleigh Ride

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Two Northwest rock'n'roll legends leave their mark on the holiday season. The Raiders' cut comes from one of the most bizarre Christmas albums of all time, 1967's A Christmas Present...And Past. While the kids are enchanted by the window decorations, Dad is getting hot and bothered by the elves in mini-skirts.

On what just may be the greatest rock n roll Christmas album of all time, The Ventures blended guitar riffs from mid-60's hits with well known holiday tunes. So you get the "Walk Don't Run" riff and a bit of the "Perfida" riff weaving in and out of "Sleigh Ride", the most played ( overplayed?) holiday song on US radios.

Offbeat Holiday Music: Blue Dreidel No 9

Brigid Kaelin: Blue Dreidel No 9

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I hope everyone has been enjoying our sideways glance at Christmas this week, and I know that I am looking forward to seeing what happens next. But I do want to take a moment to recognize another winter holiday: Hanukkah. Rather than travel to the Middle East, however, let’s journey to the American southwest. Get ready to kick up your kosher cowboy boots to the tune of Blue Dreidel No 9.

Offbeat Holiday Music: The Blizzard and The Christmas Song

Camera Obscura: The Blizzard

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Raveonettes: The Christmas Song

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One of my longest playlists is my Christmas list. If it's a Christmas song, I want it. I don't care if it's good, bad or someplace in between. I simply enjoy the music of the season. I don't remember hearing either of these two in a mall but I did learn of them both on TV in commercials so if either tune got played too much it likely was on TV rather than in a mall. But I wouldn't know that. All I know is I like both of them. They're Christmas songs! I might be pushing the envelope a bit here in that Camera Obscura's cover of Jim Reeves' The Blizzard isn't five years old just yet. The original line 'You can bet we're on her mind for it's nearly suppertime' was changed to 'Christmastime' in the C O version therby making my playlist. I'm not sure that it was originally intended to be a Christmas song. It's quite a sad song really. So to balance that we've included a happier one by the Raveonettes. This is always the first song we play when we turn on the Christmas lights for the first time each year.

Offbeat Holiday Music: I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas

Kay Martin and her Bodyguards : I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas

[Out Of Print]

One imagines Roger Sterling from Mad Men putting on this record at Christmas, to the delight of his chums. Ex-Playboy model Kay Martin and her Bodyguards (Jess Hotchkiss and Bill Elliot) had a thriving casino live act in the 1950s and early ’60s that was predicated on risqué lyrics of a sophisticated bent, performed with musical credibility. This lounge act was not cheesy, so the urbane man and his good lady hostess could enjoy it in good conscience.

And they could play it in company; Kay Martin’s records were popular party records, and of those the Christmas-themed I Know What He Wants For Christmas... But I Don’t Know How To Wrap It! LP from 1962 was the most successful. And how could it not be with such titles as “Hang Your Balls On The Xmas Tree” and “Santa’s Doing The Horizontal Twist”. Side 2 is a furiously double-entrendezing live recording of the stage act.

On “I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas”, Martin sings such pun-tastic lines like “Girls should be obscene, not heard”, and tells us of her manager’s soundproof apartment in which scripts are projected on the ceiling. Ah yes, Roger Sterling certainly would play that record…

Alas, it is not Kay Martin on the cover above, but a random model. Ms Martin is the nice lady on the right.

Offbeat Holiday Music: I Want Elvis For Christmas

The Holly Twins (with Eddie Cochran): I Want Elvis For Christmas

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The 1950s were a great time for novelty records. This one, a Christmas-themed cash-in on Elvis Presley’s recent superstardom was released in 1956. Co-written by Bob Darin, who’d soon become a star with “Splish Splash”, and future super-producer and promoter Don Kirshner, it was performed by The Holly Sisters, whose real names were Jonell and Glenell McQuaig. The twins reference Elvis songs by way of nonsense such “You aint’-a nuthin’ but a reindeer”, and the painfully artless “don’t be cruel and love me tender.”

Apart from being written Darin and Kushner, “I Want Elvis For Christmas” is of interest for another noteworthy reason: playing guitar on the track and providing faux-Elvis vocals is future rock & roll legend Eddie Cochran.

Offbeat Holiday Music: Christmas in Hollis

Run D.M.C.: Christmas in Hollis

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Sometimes it's hard to predict what malls will or will not play at this time of year. I know I've heard some musical detritus that I thought was utterly devoid of redeeming value (carol porn?). In fact, I finally had to shift my dental cleanings from December to January just to avoid yet another listening of Burl Ives' Holly Jolly Christmas, and I'd rather have that drill cranked up to drown out Elvis's Blue Christmas. Maybe these songs weren't terrible once upon a time, but they've worn out their welcome with me.

But this song may be a safe bet for this week's theme: No mall I shop at would likely play Run D.M.C. or any other hip-hop artist for that matter. Doesn't matter that this song is clean, cheery, and full of the requisite spirit. Not only that, it was released for charity, appearing on the first A Very Special Christmas in 1987.

Okay, I bet they play it in malls in Queens.

Offbeat Holiday Music: Chiron Beta Prime

Jonathan Coulton: Chiron Beta Prime

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Every year at this time, my blood sugar soars as I am subjected, er treated, to the holiday music of the mall. So, I have built up a collection of what I call my antidotes. These are holiday songs with a twist. Jonathan Coulton provides a perfect example with Chiron Beta Prime. Maybe you have a friend who sends out an annual holiday letter, updating you about what he and his family have been doing over the course of the last year. In the song, Coulton imagines the Anderson family sending such a letter from a distant asteroid. The song has a deceptive pop sheen, masking a tale of dystopian science fiction. It’s all delivered with a considerable wink, and it has helped me through the holiday season for five years now.

Leftovers (Reproductions): Kashmir

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Kashmir

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For our Reproductions theme, the idea was to post remakes of songs that rendered the original in a bigger arrangement. How can you do that with Kashmir? It’s a fair question, because the Led Zeppelin original already has a huge sound. Not only that, but the original Kashmir was an epic, clocking at 8:28, and going through some remarkable changes.

Led Zeppelin used to talk about how their sound was influenced by the music of the Arab world, and that was never clearer than in Kashmir. Still, 20 years later, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page reunited to create an album that revisited 13 of their songs from Led Zeppelin days, and made the Arab musical connection explicit. Here, Plant and Page are fronting a nine piece rock band, with instruments including mandolin and hurdy-gurdy. Add to that the string section from the London Metropolitan Orchestra. But the kicker is an ensemble of Egyptian musicians led by the great Hossam Ramzy. The album, No Quarter, is a record of a concert, and Kashmir was the grand finale. Now the song clocks at 12:23, and the extra time includes Egyptian percussion breaks. Amazingly, the sound is even bigger than the original version, and the song is even more of an epic than before. And yet, it doesn’t feel overdone at all. By this time, Robert Plant could no longer hit the highest notes that he was once famous for, but his voice still had all of the power he needed to pull this off.

Leftovers (Star Maker Debut): Tina Dico

Tina Dico: Break of Day

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Zero7 (ft. Tina Dico): Home

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I'm commonly surprised at some of the artists who we've missed along the way, and so I had some in mind for Star Maker Debut week. Even then, I never got a chance to post anything by Tina Dico, someone who caught my ear a few years ago. I don't know much about her: She's a Danish singer-songwriter who's had some success in Europe. She's got a clear, beautiful voice and some pretty decent songwriting talent. She's won reams of musical awards in Denmark. And the rest…yeah, say it with me…I learned on Wikipedia.

Still, I do know what I like: these two great songs. One's from an early EP, Far, and the other's by trip-hop artists Zero7 that features Tina on vocals. Both were released in 2004.

Leftovers (Creepy Crawlies): I’m a King Bee

Slim Harpo: I‘m a King Bee

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Muddy Waters: I‘m a King Bee

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I had big plans for Creepy Crawlies week. I started off with Praying Mantis, and then… our internet service went out for the remainder of the week. I’m a King Bee was one of the songs I never had a chance to post.

I first heard I’m a King Bee on the Rolling Stones’ first album. In their early days, the Stones covered a lot of American blues, and they always encouraged their audiences to seek out the blues artists who had inspired them. When I eventually did that, I found the original version of the song, by Slim Harpo. I’m a King Bee was Harpo’s first single in 1957. His version emphasizes the groove, and he and his band lay down a fine one. Harpo sounds quite a bit like Jimmy Reed, who had emerged from the Chicago blues scene a year earlier. But Harpo was actually from Louisiana, and he never came north, except to tour. I’m a King Bee, however, did go north to Chicago. Muddy Waters recorded the song on his last album in 1981. Waters’ version has a much more layered sound, with guitars and harmonica prominent in the mix. The song takes this treatment very well indeed. It’s hard to believe, listening to this, that Waters was very ill at the time he recorded it.

Memories: Barrytown

Steely Dan: Barrytown

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As a parent, many of life’s best and most potent memories will involve one’s children. There are, of course, the milestones: births and birthdays, first steps, first days at school, holidays, graduations, weddings etc. And there will be random events or just the vibe of a certain age which resonates stronger than that of other ages.

My only child, a son who now is 17, has given me a truckload of such memories, all of them happy. One particular joyful memory is our sharing in the enjoyment of music. When he was three years old, for a while I had to dance him to sleep. I’d put on some vinyl records, and slowly dance and sing along until he’d drift away. Over time, a standing playlist developed.

Bath-time was singing time. He’d loudly sing his favourite nursery rhymes and then some songs on our evening playlist. I have a home video recording of him sitting in the bath singing The Righteous Brothers “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and John Travolta’s “Sandy” from Grease.

Another home video recording of that time concerns none of our sleep-dancing songs. Sitting at our dining room table, he spontaneously starts singing: “I can see by what you carry that you come from Barrytown.” As readers of my blog, Any Major Dude With Half A Heart, will know, I am rather partial to Steely Dan, and the first side of 1974’s Pretzel Logic is, in my view, a masterpiece. So I was very proud of my little boy for digging on the musical stylings of the Dan.

He has remained pretty cool. The first CD he bought with his own money, when he was 10, was The Beastie Boys’ Licence To Ill, an album released 18 years earlier; the second, soon after, was a best of collection of The Highwaymen (that’s the Cash/Jennings/ Kristofferson/ Nelson country supergroup).

At the same age, he turned up for his first guitar lesson. “What do you want to play?” the tutor, a grizzled old session man, asked him, no doubt expecting to hear in response Green Day or Black Eyed Peas. My son – ten years old – replied: “Johnny Cash”. Which is as cool an answer as he could ever have given. In the end, he did learn several Green Day songs, and he is still a keen guitar player – of old and new material.

Memories: Beating Harps

Sileas: Beating Harps

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Beating Harps, the song and the album, came out in 1987. That was a very important year for me. For the last six months of the year, I was on temporary lay-off from my job. Knowing that I would be called back, I decided to live on the unemployment, while seeing if I could make an opening for myself in the music business. To do this, I decided to identify some non-profit organizations in New York City that were involved in music, and offer my services as a volunteer. So I stuffed envelopes while the Waverly Consort rehearsed in the next room. I went into schools all over the city with a group that brought interesting music to children. And I helped get mailings out for the World Music Institute. At this last one, there was a bonus; in exchange for helping out at the merchandise table, I got to attend concerts of my choice.

Also in 1987, I met a woman at a Western Square Dance club, and we began dating. I hadn’t been seeing anyone for three years, so this was a big deal for me. As I got to know her, I found that we shared a love of Celtic folk music. So, when an evening of Scottish music came up, presented by the World Music Institute, I arranged an unusual date, where we both worked the show. On the bill were Andy Stewart and Manus Lunny, and Sileas. I had never heard of them, but I knew that WMI put on quality shows. It turned out beautifully. We both loved the show, and we bought up for ourselves all of the artists’ albums that were available on the merch table.

Sileas were the duo of Patsy Seddon, playing a gut-stringed Celtic harp, and Mary MacMaster, on steel-string harp. So they play the same instrument, but each sounds completely different from the other. They complement each other beautifully, each filling the spaces left by the other. Their singing works the same way, with one taking lead, and the other supporting her with wonderful harmonies. Ideally, a relationship should be like that. The woman I took to that concert has been my wife for twenty years now. The music our lives make has sour notes sometimes, but so far, we have always found that sound again. Four years after that concert, we walked down the aisle to the sound of a Celtic harper. Janice, this post is for you. I love you.

Memories: Sailing

Rod Stewart: Sailing

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In August 1977, when I was 11, my brothers and I went on a church camp. Unlike the other two I went on, this one was quite brilliant. The group, about 40 kids from 9-15, was great, and the vibe was fantastic, in part because the youth leaders (themselves just kids aged 17-19 years, but they seemed so much older to me) were very cool.

Most importantly, for the first time in my life, I was in love. Her name was Antje, a girl with brown hair and little freckles on her nose. It was a one-sided affair; I was much too shy to do much about it, other than carving her name on my bed’s headboard (and anywhere else I found suitable), and she was very shy too.

A night or two before our departure we had a disco evening. I dressed in my tight white jeans (to what purpose did my mom pack tight white jeans for a fortnight in a church camp?) and navy t-shirt. I was pretty hot stuff, but a terrible dancer. Still, I was intent on asking Antje for a slow dance, as some way to seal my (oh, perhaps our) love. To be sure that I’d know what to do should my scheme come to fruition, I asked one of the youth leaders, the ample-bossomed Doris, to practice with me. She kindly did, to Ralph McTell’s Streets Of London. The next ballad would be my cue.

After a never-ending string of Sweet and T Rex songs, played by my DJing older brother, the opening acoustic guitar notes of Rod Stewart’s Sailing sounded. Memory might deceive me when think that my brother might have tipped me off with a gesture of the hand; I like to remember that he did, rooting for his little brother as he tried to become a little man. So, in my tight white jeans and navy T-shirt, I arose and made a beeline across the dancefloor for the lovely Antje.

Halfway down, approaching from the right flank, came a chap called Roland. He was an affable fellow, but I sensed that he and I were aiming for the same target. I don’t remember whether I actually knew that he too had taken a fancy to the lovely Antje, or whether I saw it in the menacing glint of his evil eyes. He might have had his sights set on any number of girls cliqued together in the lovely Antje’s vicinity. Still, whether by intelligence or intuition, I knew his intended target right at that moment was my Antje. Roland. My nemesis.

It was like High Noon; tumbleweed blowing as nervous eyes darted hither and tither. Little me and big Roland, both going after the same girl as we strutted across the empty dancefloor with the entire crowd watching from the sidelines. Our paths met.

Instinctively, I shoulder-charged my taller rival out of the way. As he bounced off my shoulder and ignominiously tumbled away, I arrived in front of the lovely Antje, stood before her and asked with a boldness that belied my natural shyness whether she would dance with me, to Rod Stewart’s Sailing. She looked inquiringly at her best friend for approval. Her friend nodded consent, with a faint but assuring smile, hopefully impressed by my heroic determination to present her best friend with my love.

So Antje and I had our awkward first – and, alas, last – dance, as all my pals gave me the thumbs up, and the hapless Roland licked his wounded pride by plotting a revenge which he loudly announced but which never came (and if it had come, I still won).

I would love to tell you that for the last day or so of the camp we were inseparable and discovered inner yearnings and feelings of the kind which the adult Kevin Arnold would recount in his narrative in The Wonder Years. Alas, we could barely look at one another, perhaps sensing the hopelessness of our nascent romance, what with her living a long 45 minute bus ride away from me (or maybe we were just very shy).

I never saw Antje again. But not a year goes by nor a broadcast of Rod Stewart’s Sailing when I don’t think of her, of the feeling of my hands on the back of her slightly clammy T-shirt and her soft breath brushing against my neck. I wonder if she remembers me…