Christmas Mix 2009

For those of you on the mix cd mailing list, this was marked as "Xmas 2009." I tried to be somewhat thematic in my organization, beginning with spoken word, then going into song's about Santa, songs about reindeer and other assorted Christmas animals, then a blending of Christmas songs, and then Christmas songs with a darker edge to them, before wiping all of that clean with the sheer joy of Mabel Mafuya. Here is a track by track break down. For the rest of you out there, some of the tracks came from Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Christmas Episode, while the rest came from my personal collection of Christmas records. Most of them you can find on iTunes or other services to make your own copy.


1. Justin Wilson – Cajun Night Before Christmas

Justin Wilson was an icon of Cajun living during the 1970s. During that time he tried his hand at just about everything, penning cookbooks and recording comedy albums. He also recorded this, his cajunified version of the Night Before Christmas.

2. Bob Seger & the Last Heard – Sock It To Me Santa

This comes from early in Seger’s career, long before the Silver Bullet Band. When Seger started, he was on the Cameo-Parkway label alongside the likes of ? and the Mysterians. The label pushed its artists to make Christmas singles and Seger recorded this and “Little Drummer Boy.” “Sock It To Me Santa” with its rollicking beat and lyrics fit for a James Brown song are a fine embodiment of Seger’s Detroit sound.

3. Bob Rivers – I Am Santa Claus

Bob Rivers is a radio dj out of Seattle who is known for his love of Christmas. He has put out several Christmas albums that rewrite the history of rock into Christmas songs or take traditional Christmas songs and spin them on their head. This song may be his best. According to Rivers, its not milk Santa wants but beer.

4. Sufjan Stevens – Get Behind Me, Santa!

Between 2001 and 2005, Sufjan Stevens recorded annual Christmas EPs for close friends and his biggest fans. In 2006 these, along with a new EP for 2006, were collected into a deluxe box set. Each EP contains a few traditional songs, often sacred carols, and then a couple new Stevens compositions to round things out. Stevens was certainly thinking of putting a copy of this in Jack White’s stocking when he recorded it in 2006.

5. The Enchanters – Mambo Santa Mambo

The 1950s R&B outfit the Enchanters are singing about Santa doing the mambo here. The fifties stereotype that pop music is for the uneducated is supported here as the Enchanters imply that the mambo is from Mexico, when it is really Cuban. They can’t use the excuse that they were trying to avoid a hearing before HUAC since this was recorded before Castro came to power.

6. Bob Dylan – Must Be Santa

Bob Dylan stole this madcap polka arrangement from Brave Combo, whose version he played on his radio show. The only real difference between the versions occurs when Dylan calls out the names of the reindeer and throws in the names of some presidents. I guess he just couldn’t resist when he realized how well Vixen rhymes with Nixon. David Hidalgo of Los Lobos guests on speed accordion. If you were going to buy one Christmas album this year, I would suggest Dylan’s Christmas In the Heart, but only because Dylan is donating his royalties to Feeding America, Crisis UK or the World Food Programme, depending on which territory you buy the album from. Aso, check out the quite strange video on YouTube. In it, Dylan is throwing a rent party, stumbling around in a long blonde wig, and making inane hand motions. Eventually, a fight breaks out and director Nash Edgerton gets thrown out of a window to Bob and Santa’s head-shaking disapproval.

7. Chuck Berry – Run Rudolph Run

With lines like “Rudolph, you know you’re the mastermind,” Berry took the teen poetry he’d created in songs like “School Days” and applied it to Christmas with a surprisingly high degree of success.

8. Lou Monty – Dominic, the Italian Christmas Donkey

The neighing on this song seems like some sort of ethnic stereotype that should make me feel horribly ashamed for listening to it, but there is something strangely intriguing about it at the same time. When I hear this, I imagine the wedding dance in the Godfather, if it had happened on Christmas.

9. Alton Ellis & the Lipsticks – Merry Merry Christmas

Rockin’ steady from Jamaica.

10. Leadbelly – Christmas Is A-Comin’

From the murderer’s best-selling album, Leadbelly Sings For Children!

11. James Brown – Soulful Christmas

James Brown has recorded dozens of Christmas songs, both as part of holiday album and as non-album holiday singles. This jam is one of my favorites, and I think that is at least partially due to it being a shameless advertisement for Brown himself. Near the end of the song, Brown tells the listener because they buy his records and see his shows, and that he’ll tell you Merry Christmas when you come to see his show. He panders his product like none other. There’s also Brown’s inane pronunciation, which makes it sound as though he sings “Merry Christmas! Have a new year. I love you! Have good chair!”

12. The Beatles – Christmas Time Is Hear Again

Each year, the Beatles would record a holiday record that would be sent out on 45 to members of their fan club. By all accounts, this is the best of the Beatles’ holiday records. It is cut from the same cloth as “Hello Goodbye.”

13. Run DMC – Christmas in Hollis

This cut from rap’s golden age always inspires wonderment at just what makes collard greens so delicious.

14. Bobby “Boris” Pickett – Monster’s Holiday

Apparently Bobby Pickett’s record company decided to cash in as much as possible on the success of “Monster Mash,” prompting them to release this sequel just two months later.

15. Patsy Raye – Beatnik’s Wish

Patsy Raye sounds like one way-out happening chick on this doozy of a tune. The drumming is radical, mirroring Raye’s pulse as she is “wiggin’” for a man. The one thing that makes me question this song’s beatnik authenticity….. since when do the Freshman Four swing?

16. Kay Martin & Her Bodyguards – I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas

This is the Christmas theme for pin-up models everywhere. It is a lot of kitschy fun, but it is also a bit problematic. This song appears to assert women’s sexual agency, and their ability to use that sexuality as a means to achieve economic agency. The problem with this approach is that in the porn industry the means of production are owned by males, as the song playfully illustrates. All of the managers and agents are men. There are also two troubling verses. The first is the one about the manager who believes women should “be obscene and not heard.” At first glance, this disrupts the traditional misogyny inherent in the phrase “women should be seen and not heard,” but women are still “not heard” in this song, and by being obscene, though they may be censored, the desire for them to “be seen” will increase, so rather than disrupting the misogyny this phrase enhances it by further objectifying women. The other troubling verse is about the agent whose office “even ha[s] a movie script projected on the ceiling.” The problem here is that, in order for the speaker to know this, she would have had to have been on the bottom, which is where women are really kept by this kind of song. The numerous double-entendres are certainly fun, but in many ways this song has been dated by its sexist views of women. This song is merely product, and product created for men at the time. Though it appears on the surface that it could be reclaimed, efforts to do so fall short. Also, what’s going on at the end of the song, when she offers to “show a Jew some jitsu?” Rather than coming across as a Kill Bill move, it just serves to stereotype Jews as wealthy misers.

17. Gayla Peevy – I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas

I’m with ya, Gayla. I wouldn’t mind a chimpanzee either, come to think of it, though the SPCA may have other ideas.

18. Ray Stevens – Santa Claus Is Watching You

Nothing is wilder than hearing about Clyde the camel and Rudolph breaking his hip in a twist-contest. This song perfectly embodies the American Graffiti ethic, with Ray Stevens sounding more like Wolfman Jack than the Wolfman himself.

19. Willie Nelson – Little Dealer Boy

Willie Nelson recorded this for Stephen Colbert’s Christmas special, which also featured the likes of Elvis Costello and Toby Keith. It is a great song, especially the slant rhyme of “herb” and “myrrh,” but would have been even better without Colbert’s annoying attempt at providing background vocals. A music video can be seen on YouTube featuring Willie Nelson dressed up as a wise man from the east.

20. Ry Cooder – Christmas In Southgate

This sounds like a scene straight out of Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory, but instead it came from My Name Is Buddy, Ry Cooder’s conflation of “Wind In the Willows” and Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath set during the second Bush administration. What it does recall is Guthrie’s vision of Christ as a socialist, outlaw martyr in “Jesus Christ.”

21. Prince – Another Lonely Christmas

Since Prince couldn’t do any wrong in 1984, he decided to release this as a b-side to one of the singles from Purple Rain. The song painfully recalls the death of a dear lover. “I drink banana daquiris ‘til I’m blind” is Prince’s equivalent of Ezra Pound’s “the monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead” – a perfect image of infinite sadness, and a line too silly to carry any pathos if it were sung by anyone else.

22. Stevie Wonder – Someday at Christmas

This has the feel of Stevie Wonder’s earlier music, before he discovered funk and fused it with his soul sound. The lyrics, however, are all peak period Wonder and wouldn’t have been out of place on Songs in the Key of Life, perhaps released as a double-A-sided single with “Pastime Paradise.”

23. The Staples Singers – Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas?

The merry/Mary pun is obvious, but it is still more fun, or at least less cring-inducing, than “put the Christ back in Christmas.” This was recorded during the peak of the Staple Singers’ mainstream popularity in the early 1970s, and Mavis is dominating this classic cut while Pops is throwing in some jammin’ lines too.

24. Bob Dorough & Miles Davis – Blue Xmas

Bob Dorough would later become famous for penning songs like “Conjunction Junction” and “3 is the Magic Number,” but while waiting for Schoolhouse Rock to become a hit he recorded this song with Miles Davis. It followed right on the heels of Davis’ Kind of Blue and the horn lick bears a definite resemblance to “So What.” This is perhaps the best of the anti-consumerist Christmas songs.

25. Thurl Ravenscroft – You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch

From the soundtrack to the 1966 animated favorite.

26. The Sonics – Don’t Believe In Christmas

Rather than cover “Run Rudolph Run,” the Sonics decided to rip off another Chuck Berry song – “Too Much Monkey Business” – and supply it with a new set of lyrics. Theirs is one of the finest legacies in garage rock with great songs like “Psycho” and “Strychnine.”

27. Simon & Garfunel – Silent Night

This song closed out Simon & Garfunkel’s seminal lp, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme. I know I’m in the minority, but I feel it is their strongest album. It is certainly their most diverse, and “Silent Night” is one of the highlights due to the way the song counterpoints the traditional carol with contemporary news reports of the National Guard marching on Dr. King and the growing military presence in Vietnam.

28. Mabel Mafuya – Happy Christmas, Happy New Year

After the seriousness of “Silent Night,” I thought it would be good to end the album on a happy note, and I couldn’t think of any better way to do that than with the earnest joy of South African singer Mabel Mafuya.

100 Albums, 100 Words (40-31)

40. Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme (1966)

Although Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water receive far more attention, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme is certainly the most varied and possibly the most affecting Simon & Garfunkel album. The raucous “Simple Desultory Philippic” and the deeply sorrowful “7 O’Clock News/ Silent Night” are like little else in popular music, and are certainly exotic yet brilliant excursions within the Simon & Garfunkel catalog. Other tracks such as the wistful “Homeward Bound,” the bouncy “59th Street Bridge Song” and the reflective “Dangling Conversation” may follow familiar models, but do so with a graceful delicacy that makes them memorable, not generic.

39. Prince – 1999 (1982)

Following Dirty Mind, Prince knew he had a unique sound, but was unsure of how to develop it. He tried to elongate songs and be over-the-top in his political declarations on Controversy, but a year later he learned how to control the raw power naked funk unleashed on 1999. Prince’s breakthrough, the album contained three top twenty singles, two of which remain classics (“1999,” “Little Red Corvette”). Prince learned more artistically mature ways to politicize his music with “Lady Cab Driver” and “Free” and still managed to keep up his sultry leer on “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” and “International Lover.”

38. Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St. (1972)

Putting on Exile makes you feel like you’re stepping down into a speakeasy, replete with boogie-woogie piano licks, horns and gospel singers. Once inside, exiled from the mainstream, the album envelops you in cathartic celebration filtered through a whiskey-soaked drawl. “Shake Your Hips” is a leering blues. “Shine the Light” is an elegy. “Sweet Virginia” could be a backwoods ode to the state itself. Taken altogether, this is the apotheosis of what Gram Parsons (a close friend of Richards who worked on the album) termed “cosmic American music,” this roots-infused album of juke joint jive feels simultaneously grimy and rejuvenating.

37. The Doors – Morrison Hotel (1970)

Even though Jim Morrison moans that this is the strangest life he’s ever known on “Waiting For the Sun,” Morrison Hotel may be the most normal album The Doors ever released, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. No twelve minute songs about incest, no wigged out poetry readings – just the essence of rock. Robbie Kreiger’s guitar carries all the barroom swagger he can muster on “Roadhouse Blues.” Ray Manzarek’s hands flutter across his organ on the nuevo-funk masterpiece “Peace Frog.” The compositions are tight, leaving none of Soft Parade’s filler. The older I get, the better this record sounds.

36. The Who – Live At Leeds (1970)

Pete Townsend used the studio to great advantage to create pristine recordings unparalleled for their majesty and breadth. Then, in concert, his bandmates destroyed them with virtuosic power as a completely maniacal trio with a really pretty guy who mostly just stood there but occasionally sang. A blend of perfectly nailed covers (“Shakin’ All Over,” “Young Man Blues”), extended jams of songs that go leagues beyond their original incarnations (“Magic Bus,” “My Generation”), and a concise smattering of mostly straight-forward hits (“Substitute”), Leeds provides the perfect introduction to what the Who do best, and that is rock like wild wildebeests.

35. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975)

Born To Run is a street fantasy, an “opera out on the turnpike,” and a glimpse into the kind of world that plagued Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. The urban underbelly Springsteen creates is populated with a vivid cast of characters, including Bad Scooter, the Magic Rat, and the Duke Street Kings. Behind the gritty tales, though, lies a lush and tender soundscape. Roy Bittan’s nuanced piano invites the listener in while Clarence Clemons tight, bright horn leads shoot right through them with pained solos. More than anything else, this is the sound of E-Street, distilled to its finest essence.

34. The Band – Music From Big Pink (1968)

Coming down the wire from a big pink barn, this idyllic album slowly unravels its strengths. A muted organ begins spreading creaky chords among earthy voices in the gospel strains of ”Tears of Rage,” but by “We Can Talk” Garth Hudson is rocking it like a swamp, building to a peak in “Chest Fever.” Following this up is Richard Manuel’s most aching vocal on this album, “Lonesome Suzie.” The musicianship developed while a Toronto bar band and the sound honed with Bob Dylan in the basement of Hi-Lo-Ha reach their logical conclusion in this blissful blend of smooth country sounds.

33. Beatles – Revolver (1966)

Tonight, on Unsolved Mysteries of Rock, we will consider many of the conundrums and confusions surrounding the Beatles’ Revolver, such as what exactly did Dr. Roberts prescribe? Was “Tomorrow Never Knows” inspired by just LSD, or was a time machine also involved? Why do the head lice crawling around on the cover look conspicuously like the Beatles themselves? And, perhaps most importantly, why did the Beatles choose to name this album Revolver? Was it simply to prevent Ted Nugent from one day using the title himself, or was it just that the music on this album completely blows your mind?

32. DJ Jazzy Jeff – The Magnificent (2002)

Baby Black, Pauly Yamz and Chef Word are stars, at least in Philly, the geographical context that this album is a musical metaphor for. The Magnificent creates community, and the lesser known rappers stand shoulder-to-shoulder with giants like J-Live, Raheem, Jill Scott, Shawn Stockman, and DJ Jazzy Jeff. This is undoubtedly the most underappreciated album on my list, which is shameful because the socially conscious rhymes the rappers construct in their lyrical landscapes build up the people, despite occasionally falling into the misogynistic trap that plagues so much otherwise delightful rap. And, of course, Jeff proves fresher than the Prince.

31. Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison (1968)

If you were a prisoner who got to go to a concert, what would you like to hear songs about? (Please check all that apply.)

o Sleeping with your best friend’s wife
o Being so busted broke you have to steal
o Shooting cocaine
o Shooting your woman down
o Shooting cocaine AND shooting your woman down
o Shooting a man just to watch him die
o Getting pictures of mom in the mail
o Hangings and electric chairs
o Failed attempts at pardons
o Flushing down old love affairs
o A fellow inmate’s musings on religion
o Dirty thievin’ dogs
o Prison break attempts
o Prison break attempts that are really suicide attempts

Christmas Mix 07

I love Christmas music. I love the normal stuff; the Bing Crosby and all that. I love the crazy stuff too. Each year I made a mix up of my favorite Christmas songs that I own. My collection grows each year, and so something must go. I don't know what I'll cut next year, cause this year was killer.

Here it is, the dopest Christmas mix tape yet!

1. Zapp – Please Come Home For Christmas
2. Red Simpson – Truckin’ Trees For Christmas
3. James Brown – Go Power At Christmas Time
4. The Who – Christmas
5. Chuck Berry – Run Rudolph Run
6. James Brown – Soulful Christmas
7. Prince- Another Lonely Christmas
8. Run DMC – Christmas in Hollis
9. Bobby “Boris” Picket – Monsters’ Holiday
10. Bob Rivers – I Am Santa Claus
11. James Brown – Santa Clause, Go Straight To the Ghetto
12. Dick Farina & Ric Von Schmidt – Xmas Island
13. Ry Cooder – Christmas In Southgate
14. The Youngsters – Christmas In Jail
15. Leadbelly – Christmas Is A-Comin’
16. The Beatles – Christmas Time Is Here Again
17. Ray Stevens – Santa Clause Is Watching You
18. Bob Seger – Sock It To Me Santa
19. Brave Combo – Must Be Santa
20. Kay Martin & Her Bodyguards – I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas
21. John Lennon – Happy Xmas
22. Bob Dorough & Miles Davis – Blue Xmas
23. The Sonics – Don’t Believe In Christmas
24. James Brown – Hey America
25. Simon & Garfunkel – Silent Night

1. Zapp's "Please Come Home For Christmas"

Electrofunk and mistletoe by the candlelight. Curl up with a bottle of Alize and get ready for some g-funk style beats replete with the boice box.

2. Red Simpson's "Truckin' Trees For Christmas"

Trucking has to be one of the most blue collar professions in the United States. This song makes me want to end up at some dive bar on Christmas, cheering up the truckers traveling through. The song is sweet, but the truth is bitter.

3. James Brown's "Go Power At Christmas Time"

The JB's lay out the funk hard on this tune. Go power seems as apt as soul power when it comes to wipin' smiles on peoples faces and rambling on about ski party movies you were in and dance crazes you are about to create.

4. The Who's "Christmas"

Little Tommy doesn't know who Christ was, but he's happy to open up The Night Before Christmas in brail and then pick his nose between beating the crap out of his cousins at pinball. Not necessarily Christmas-y, but it takes place on Christmas, and that's enough to make this list.

5. Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run"

More than any other act, with the possible exception of AC/DC, all of Chuck Berry's songs sound more or less the same. In addition to his one guitar lick, Berry is also credited with bringing memorable lyrics to rock, and the highlight here is definitely the classic claim "Rudolph, [. . .] you're the mastermind."

6. James Brown's "Soulful Christmas"

Perhaps the funkiest of Brown's many, many Christmas songs, this number is a classic. Instead of wishing a happy new year, Brown tells you to "have a new year." Um...., thanks. You can also have a good cheer, or a good chair depening on the verse. The part that makes this song so special though is the last minute, where Brown exhorts fans to come see him in concert so that he can tell them Merry Christmas, ... but he'll only do it at the show. Won't you come to see his show? Good God!

7. Prince's "Another Lonely Christmas"

This song seems to follow along with Prince's film Under the Cherry Moon, but it was recorded two years earlier. Perhaps he wrote the movie after an idea he got from the song. Addressed to an ex-girlfriend's little sister (get your minds out of the gutter), Prince mourns the death of his true love, who died the previous Christmas. Although some parts of it are still funny (who drinks banana dacquiris, especially until they are blind?), overall the song remains one of Prince's most touching tunes.

8. Run DMC's "Christmas In Hollis"

For the longest time I thought this song opened with the lines "It's Christmas down in Hollis, Queens / Mama's makin' chicken and collard greens." It always made me hungry for collard greens, even though I'm not even sure I've ever had them. My favorite part is right after DMC boasts that every year he busts Christmas carols. The beat finagles a medley of Christmas classics into b-boy style and becomes the dopest thing since Eddie Murphy's Christmas installment of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

9. Bobby "Boris" Picket's "Monster's Holiday"

This follow up to "Monster's Mash" is a blatant rip-off of the original's beat with just a set of new lyrics about hijacking Santa's sleigh. It ges repetitive, but its an ultrarare novelty nonetheless.

10. Bob Rivers' "I Am Santa Claus"

In this "Iron Man" send up, Bob Rivers even sounds like Ozzy, and his band definitely pulls off Black Sabbath, plus a tinge of Manheim Steamroller. The lyrics are crazy-witty. My personal favorite: "Give him cookies and beer / He'll come to your house first next year!"

11. James Brown's "Santa Claus, Go Straight To the Ghetto"

This ploy to turn Santa into a socialist makes the rampant capitalism of the season all that much sadder. You know they should be shameful after this song.

12. Dick Farina and Ric Von Schmidt's "Xmas Island"

Leave it to Joan Baez's brother-in-law to feel deserving only cause he hasn't committed any crimes recently. Giving the personnel, I'd hoped for a rant against sweat shop labor. Oh well.

13. Ry Cooder's "Christmas In Southgate"

A depression-era dance tune. The closest I've heard to a polka ballad, if such a thing can exist, this tune from My Name Is Buddy is fantastic. Who wouldn't give up whiskey for a simultaneous visit from Santa AND Jesus.

14. The Youngsters' "Christmas In Jail"

A reminisce of running into Santa's sleigh while out drunk driving. At least the prisoners get turkey.

15. Leadbelly's "Christmas Is A Comin'"

The oldest song on this compilation, Leadbelly croons on about how roosters celebrate Christmas. He also lets us know that Santa Clause comes to Christmas on a Christmas Day.

16. The Beatles' "Christmas Time Is Here Again"

This really should have gone on Magical Mystery Tour

17. Ray Stevens' "Santa Claus Is Watching You"

Great 50s-style R&B sax fills. Ray Stevens falsetto lifts this track out of novelty-land and makes is competely rad. Still not sure about a flying camel, though.

18. Bob Seger's "Sock It To Me Santa"

The opening here sounds like the opening of a 70s horror film, but the song itself is the grittiest Christmas song never released by James Brown.

19. Brave Combo's "Must Be Santa"

This song is just a great list of characteristics of Santa shouted against an accordion-fueled break beat. The best of Christmas polkas.

20. Kay Martin's "I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas"

This song is drrty. It makes the tabloids look clean. The girl wants to be able to read the script off of the ceiling. If she gets a casting couch, you know its gonna be made of coal.

21. John Lennon's "Happy Xmas"

John's a little idealistic, but who am I to rob him of his opportunism? If nothing else he got a chorus of little kids active in helping to stop the war.

22. Bob Dorough & Miles Davis' "Blue Xmas"

The best christmas-based jazz song ever. I've never heard bell ringers debased elsewhere. The Pre-Schoolhouse Rocks Dorough sounds particularly dour.

23. The Sonics' "Don't Believe In Christmas"

This ripoff of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" rocks out over a rollicking beat filled out with some wicked organ soloing.

24. James Brown's "Hey America"

This song is great for James' attempts to be multicultural. In order to celebrate Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, he brings out the a salam a lakem and the hava negeilah. He even brings up the danke shan, even though "this is the United States, you know?"

25. Simon & Garfunkel's "Silent Night/7 O'Clock News"

This would have been chilling with just the "Silent Night." The addition of news reports about everything from King planning protests to the death of Lenny Bruce to Vietnam protests makes it arguably the most touch piece in the S&G catalog, and undoubtedly the best use ever of a traditional Christmas song.

Simply "Silent Night would have been