The Christmas In the Heart that could have been

When Dylan's camp announced a Christmas album, I was expecting few if any originals, though I was hopeful for at least some obscure covers, and at least "Melekaliki Maka." It was revealed shortly thereafter that Christmas In the Heart was to be an album of mostly Christmas standards.

I was a tad disappointed at first, but "Christmas Island" is as good as "Melekalki Maka" and its a song I didn't know before. Dylan's vocals have made me actually pay attention to parts of songs like "Here Comes Santa Claus" that I'd always ignored before. Also, when listening to the Christmas episode of Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, I've always thought Dylan should make a polka recording each time I heard Brave Combo's recording of "Must Be Santa," which Dylan has now covered and supposedly made a very wild video for.

Having heard several samples, it seems like Dylan has put his own spin on at least a few songs, and payed tribute where it needed payed on others, so it can't be all bad. I also understand that the fantastically creative Ditty Bops contributed the Andrews Sisters' style background vocals; hopefully this will increase their exposure. I can't imagine many Dylan fans disliking a duo who sew their own dresses out of grocery store bags, a talent which is both hot and environmentally friendly.

While I'm putting off listening to the whole album before it is officially released to the public on Tuesday, I did compile a list of Dylan's non-Christmas In the Heart Christmas songs. This should give an idea of what an album of Dylan's Christmas originals may have looked like.

1. Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie [from Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 (1991, recorded 1963)
2. Ballad of Donald White [from Best of Broadside 1962-1988, circa 1962)
3. Farewell Angelina [from Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 (1991, recorded 1965)]
4. She Belongs to Me [from Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
5. On the Road Again [from Bringing It All Back Home (1965)]
6. Three Angels [from New Morning (1970)]
7. Arthur McBride [from Good As I Been To You (1992)]
8. Floater (Too Much To Ask) [from "Love and Theft" (2001)]
9. Can't Escape From You [from Tell Tale Signs (2008, recorded 2005)]
10. Huck's Tune [from Lucky You soundtrack (2007)]

1. "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie"

This is actually a poem Dylan wrote, and then decided to recite one time in concert. It doesn't have that much to do with Woody Guthrie, but more to do with the regression of American culture. It is rather lengthy, but one section features Dylan calling out all the people he sees as fakes and phonies, including the people who:

"come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin',
sayin' 'ain't I pretty and ain't I cute?
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow'
when you can't even sense if they got any insides,
these people so pretty in their ribbons and bows."

2. "Ballad of Donald White"

One of Dylan's early topical songs, "Donald White" is set on Christmas. The song is written from White's point of view, a petty criminal who liked jail so much he didn't want to leave. Life on the outside left him feeling alienated and depressed, and so to make sure he had the comforting routine of prison life, he murdered a man on Christmas Eve. Christmas can be a lonely season for those with no one to connect to, and Dylan plays on that in the songs. The detail of Christmas Eve may be factual, but Dylan's topical songs were never noted for sticking to the facts.

3. "Farewell Angelina"

This song was an early exercise in surrealism, and was recorded most famously by Joan Baez. One of the lines is "King Kong, little elves -- on the rooftops they dance." Well, there are elves....

4. "She Belongs to Me"

This song may have been written for Joan Baez. Part of the song reads like a shopping list of presents Dylan meant to give Baez -- "For Halloween buy her a trumpet, / and for Christmas get her a drum" -- but then decided to leave on the curb outside of the gate in "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" a few albums later.

5. "On the Road Again"

Not the Willie Nelson song about traveling, Dylan's "On the Road Again" is a hilarious tale of being in love with a girl who is in the crazy house. It also has some of Bob's most "dylanesque" vocals. In addition to noticing things like relatives walking around in Napoleon Bonaparte's mask, when Bob visits the girl, he "ask[s], 'who's there in the fire place?' and [she] tells him Santa Claus."

6. "Three Angels"

New Morning is a summer album, and in this song, which is really more like a poem spoken over music, Dylan evokes the feeling of a small town's rundown mainstreet where the dingy Christmas decorations are still there from the year before. It is the most depressing song on the album by far (though, to be fair, it may be Dylan's happiest album). Dylan imagines the three angels sitting atop telephone poles to be sentient beings, and then wonders if they'd even care that no one seems to notice them.

7. "Arthur McBride"

Technically, this isn't a Dylan original, but it is closer to what I initially expected on Christmas In the Heart. "Arthur McBride" is a folk song about a British army recruiter who attempts to intimidate two young Irish boys into enlisting on Christmas morning. When they not only refuse, but tell him they think the king only wants the Irish to serve as lambs to the slaughter, the enlisting officer tries to attack them, but they end up beating the shit out of him instead. A nice song about a cheerful Christmas morning.

8. "Floater"

In the 2000s, Dylan had several original songs with Christmas in them, so it shouldn't have come as a total surprise that he wanted to record a whole Christmas album. This is the first of the decade. In Floater, Dylan includes the verse:

"My grandfather was a duck trapper;
he could do it with just drag nets and ropes.
My grandmother could sew new dresses out of old cloth.
I don't know if they had any dreams or hopes.
I had them once though I suppose
to go along with all the rain dancin' and the Christmas carols on all the Christmas eves;
I left all my dreams and hopes
buried under tobacco leaves."

Well, eventually Dylan's dreams end up as compost in the fields of the South, but at least when he did have them it was during a happy time like Christmas. Overall, the feeling is too resigned to be bittersweet; instead, it's almost wistful.

9. "Can't Escape From You"

This recent song is about a woman Dylan wants to get away from but doesn't seem able to live without for long. During one of the many parts of the song where he insults her to no end, he informs her that:

"You've wasted all your power.
You threw out the Christmas pie.
Now you're withering like a flower;
you'll play the fool and die."

Well, either Christmas pie is a song of power or else Dylan needed both a. something to rhyme with "die" and b. something else to fill out the meter.

10. "Huck's Tune"

In perhaps Dylan's most definite statement on the holidays, he has this charming nugget to share: "All the merry elves / can go hang themselves." Yikes!

As a bonus, the album could include the liner notes to John Wesley Harding, which feature a perverse, post-modern recounting of the nativity, blended with the last supper, with Frank(ie Lee) in the role of the Christ manchild and Terry Chute in the role of Dylan's unethical ubermanager Albert Grossman, if he happened to be hanging around Bethlehem at the time.

Ultimately, if Dylan had written Christmas In the Heart, it seems that it would have been a much more dour affair. As it is, it sounds like it will be at least mildly enjoyable as a whole, and some songs will leave you grinning from ear to ear.