Listening to Christmas music on radio recently reminded me that novelty
music is big on holidays. There are many novelty Christmas tunes, not a
bad thing, I think. The novelty songs tend to be humorous, something to
balance all those traditions serious, spiritual songs. On the whole,
novelty Christmas music ranges from naughty to nice, from annoying to
charming, from the clever to the bizarre. How can you not like that?
Need some examples? Well, here they come. Give Santa some extra bourbon in his egg nog if he listens to those songs. They, uh, don't exactly define the true meaning of Christmas. Anyway, here are, in no particular order, some of my favorite and some of the ones in which I will I plug my ears if played. Next to each is a Yu Tube link for you to get a sample of the many novelty Christmas tunes people either love or hate.
- 'I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas' is my choice for the worst Christmas song ever to become a hit. Possibly the strangest and Christmas single title ever. Gayla Peevey was an American child star from Oklahoma, and this song, which was written in 1950, had very serious intentions. It had been brought to Miss Peevey's attention that the city zoo had no hippopotamus, and so someone at Columbia records had the bright idea of putting together a campaign aimed at "buying Gayla" a hippo for Christmas. The song was recorded to accompany the campaign and, after raising several thousand dollars, a baby hippo was given to the zoo. The song has become a Christmas radio staple and is so grating that suicides might be attributed to frequent listeners.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyijq_u1ypg
- 'I'm Getting Nuttin For Christmas' is sentiment we can all relate to. It's one of those cute songs that are supposed to charm the listener. The little bad boy who sings the tune was Barry Gordon who was 7 years old at the time. He croons about all the bad things he did all year and tells us because of it, "I'm Gettin Nuttin For Christmas". Maybe we ought to send this tune to Justin Beiber or those terrorist Isis leaders. Someone ought to warn them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK06SgtXin0
- The Chipmunk Song, 'Christmas Don't be Late' can be blamed on a<> fellow named Ross Bagdasarian who was fooling around with tapes when he accidentally played one at the wrong speed. The result was that the speeded up vocals sounded just like "chipmunks" and it is one of the biggest selling Christmas novelty songs ever recorded.. The Chipmunks paved the way for some of pop's most famous sonic experiments, from the Beatles' use of backwards tapes to the Bee Gees' very high voices. This song annoys so many people that another Christmas novelty song called "Chipmunks Roasting Over An Open Fire' was recorded in spite of the rodent singers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whY9MKlvisI
- 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer', by Elmo and Prats is not a tune for the spiritual type. In 1979, a San Francisco veterinarian called Elmo Shropshire was moonlighting in bluegrass band when he came across a song written by his friend Randy Brooks. 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer' tells a cautionary tale of festive excess that any drink driving campaign would be proud of. It details how Grandma falls over in the snow after too much eggnog and is found with "hoof prints on her forehead." It became a phenomenon and another reason to hate eggnog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzV9DIL_vrM
- 'Santa Baby', by Eartha Kitt is a greed parody (is not Christmas also the greedy season). It not only defines a a materialistic holiday at but also paints women as seeing Christmas as a search for a Sugar Daddy Santa, as the true meaning of the holiday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMyF9fDKzE
<>
-The Singing Dogs version of 'Jingle Bells' ... From the decade that spawned more novelty Christmas records than any other, the 50's, this one can make anyone hate the holidays. a genuine classic. The famous tune of the title was recorded using an entire choir of real life "singing" (barking dogs). These were the days before samplers and fancy modern technology, so the studio process involved recording hundreds of hours of mutts, feeding them (the barks, not the dogs) through a variable frequency oscillator, then editing them together to fit a backing track. This one is "Ruff ruff ruff, ruff ruff ruff, grrruff ruff ruff ruff ruff!" to listen to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xam01uaj6Vg
- 'Run Rudolph Run' by Chuck Berry was an early record to what was otherwise a great career. Rumors are that even Rudolph runs and hides when this song is played.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVu4c7dhDRE
-'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus' is around in many forms but is defined by the Jimmy Boyd original. In the song, the boy sees Santa kissing mom. Oh, maybe it was Bill Cosby, not Santa who was doing the kissing. This one is so sweet and innocent diabetics are forbidden from listening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7t8YTbQSQc
- 'Snoopy's Christmas' by the Royal Guardsman can be excused as a reflection of the 'Peanuts' comic strip frenzy in which it was written. The Guardsman did little else after that song, but made a comeback in December 2006, when they released a new Snoopy song, "Snoopy vs. Osama", which became a hit......proving the old axiom that one should never overestimate the taste of the consumer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbhzqoYYROA
-Bizarre is the best way to label 'Santa Claus Has Got Aids This Year', by Tiny Tim. This one was recorded before the AIDS epidemic was out leashed, so forgive the writer and performer. And, the performer (the equally bizarre Tiny Tim) wasn't referring to the disease, but rather to a diet bar called "Ayds". It was a classic case of the worst timing, and the coincidence makes for a hilarious Christmas song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU8IQqcq270
- 'Santa Claus and His Old Lady' by Cheech and Chong is a hilarious chatter song by two stoned out druggies with lyrics like this- "Once upon a time, about, hmmm, five years ago, there was this groovy dude and has name was Santa Claus, y'know? And he used to live over in the projects with his old lady and they had a pretty good thing together because his old lady was really fine and she could cook and all that stuff like that, y'know. Like, she made da best brownies in town, man! Oh, I could remember 'em now, man. I could eat one of 'em, man."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSH9ryRzHQ4
Need some examples? Well, here they come. Give Santa some extra bourbon in his egg nog if he listens to those songs. They, uh, don't exactly define the true meaning of Christmas. Anyway, here are, in no particular order, some of my favorite and some of the ones in which I will I plug my ears if played. Next to each is a Yu Tube link for you to get a sample of the many novelty Christmas tunes people either love or hate.
- 'I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas' is my choice for the worst Christmas song ever to become a hit. Possibly the strangest and Christmas single title ever. Gayla Peevey was an American child star from Oklahoma, and this song, which was written in 1950, had very serious intentions. It had been brought to Miss Peevey's attention that the city zoo had no hippopotamus, and so someone at Columbia records had the bright idea of putting together a campaign aimed at "buying Gayla" a hippo for Christmas. The song was recorded to accompany the campaign and, after raising several thousand dollars, a baby hippo was given to the zoo. The song has become a Christmas radio staple and is so grating that suicides might be attributed to frequent listeners.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyijq_u1ypg
- 'I'm Getting Nuttin For Christmas' is sentiment we can all relate to. It's one of those cute songs that are supposed to charm the listener. The little bad boy who sings the tune was Barry Gordon who was 7 years old at the time. He croons about all the bad things he did all year and tells us because of it, "I'm Gettin Nuttin For Christmas". Maybe we ought to send this tune to Justin Beiber or those terrorist Isis leaders. Someone ought to warn them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK06SgtXin0
- The Chipmunk Song, 'Christmas Don't be Late' can be blamed on a<> fellow named Ross Bagdasarian who was fooling around with tapes when he accidentally played one at the wrong speed. The result was that the speeded up vocals sounded just like "chipmunks" and it is one of the biggest selling Christmas novelty songs ever recorded.. The Chipmunks paved the way for some of pop's most famous sonic experiments, from the Beatles' use of backwards tapes to the Bee Gees' very high voices. This song annoys so many people that another Christmas novelty song called "Chipmunks Roasting Over An Open Fire' was recorded in spite of the rodent singers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whY9MKlvisI
- 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer', by Elmo and Prats is not a tune for the spiritual type. In 1979, a San Francisco veterinarian called Elmo Shropshire was moonlighting in bluegrass band when he came across a song written by his friend Randy Brooks. 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer' tells a cautionary tale of festive excess that any drink driving campaign would be proud of. It details how Grandma falls over in the snow after too much eggnog and is found with "hoof prints on her forehead." It became a phenomenon and another reason to hate eggnog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzV9DIL_vrM
- 'Santa Baby', by Eartha Kitt is a greed parody (is not Christmas also the greedy season). It not only defines a a materialistic holiday at but also paints women as seeing Christmas as a search for a Sugar Daddy Santa, as the true meaning of the holiday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMyF9fDKzE
<>
-The Singing Dogs version of 'Jingle Bells' ... From the decade that spawned more novelty Christmas records than any other, the 50's, this one can make anyone hate the holidays. a genuine classic. The famous tune of the title was recorded using an entire choir of real life "singing" (barking dogs). These were the days before samplers and fancy modern technology, so the studio process involved recording hundreds of hours of mutts, feeding them (the barks, not the dogs) through a variable frequency oscillator, then editing them together to fit a backing track. This one is "Ruff ruff ruff, ruff ruff ruff, grrruff ruff ruff ruff ruff!" to listen to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xam01uaj6Vg
- 'Run Rudolph Run' by Chuck Berry was an early record to what was otherwise a great career. Rumors are that even Rudolph runs and hides when this song is played.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVu4c7dhDRE
-'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus' is around in many forms but is defined by the Jimmy Boyd original. In the song, the boy sees Santa kissing mom. Oh, maybe it was Bill Cosby, not Santa who was doing the kissing. This one is so sweet and innocent diabetics are forbidden from listening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7t8YTbQSQc
- 'Snoopy's Christmas' by the Royal Guardsman can be excused as a reflection of the 'Peanuts' comic strip frenzy in which it was written. The Guardsman did little else after that song, but made a comeback in December 2006, when they released a new Snoopy song, "Snoopy vs. Osama", which became a hit......proving the old axiom that one should never overestimate the taste of the consumer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbhzqoYYROA
-Bizarre is the best way to label 'Santa Claus Has Got Aids This Year', by Tiny Tim. This one was recorded before the AIDS epidemic was out leashed, so forgive the writer and performer. And, the performer (the equally bizarre Tiny Tim) wasn't referring to the disease, but rather to a diet bar called "Ayds". It was a classic case of the worst timing, and the coincidence makes for a hilarious Christmas song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU8IQqcq270
- 'Santa Claus and His Old Lady' by Cheech and Chong is a hilarious chatter song by two stoned out druggies with lyrics like this- "Once upon a time, about, hmmm, five years ago, there was this groovy dude and has name was Santa Claus, y'know? And he used to live over in the projects with his old lady and they had a pretty good thing together because his old lady was really fine and she could cook and all that stuff like that, y'know. Like, she made da best brownies in town, man! Oh, I could remember 'em now, man. I could eat one of 'em, man."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSH9ryRzHQ4
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