Let’s end the Santa drawings with a rendition of PC and yours truly. What a great season. I think we debuted some new songs and touched upon some favorites. It’s always a treat to see readers from across the world enjoying this music, this season, and this site.
The song was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Judy Garland made the song famous in her 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis. Garland found the original lyrics too sad for a Christmas song. There is a fatalistic view on the world—there is talk of everyone being together, of muddling through, friends once gone who will come back. There is a tender delicateness to this version—that quiet, music box-like introduction that draws the listener into the word. And her voice is heartbreaking and beautiful.
Where would we be without 77 Santas? I hope you enjoyed this year’s drawings. We’re now done with 77 different versions of Santa. Next year, perhaps we’ll start a new list—probably not drawings, since those are tough! Any ideas? I love the childlike awe of this song—it captures that innocent excitement at Christmas. And there’s never enough of that.
The best Christmas song ever recorded. She starts our season. She ends our season. And she is on my iTunes playlist all year long. Tune in tonight, Dec. 23, to see Darlene’s annual performance on The Late Show with David Letterman, one of the absolute treats of the holiday season. It isn’t Christmas without the one and only Darlene Love.
Have a happy holiday season and a great new year. We'll see you again in July!
If you’re reading this, you’re alive.That’s a good thing considering that this year claimed just about every celebrity in existence.
We wanted to give a little shout-out to John Hughes.His films have left an indelible impression on our generation.Movies like The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, and Sixteen Candles basically created a whole new genre.It’s spawned many imitations, but none have captured the magic of Hughes.He also contributed some of the best holiday movies in recent history.Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is one of the best films of the past fifty years—a truly touching comedy that features the best work by both Steve Martin and John Candy as two wayward travelers making it home for Thanksgiving.Hughes also wrote Home Alone (see the note below on the Mel Torme song), Home Alone 2 (which was still pretty good in my book, if not predictable), and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.These days, it’s nearly impossible to contribute a holiday film that is placed in the canon.Hughes wrote three—PTA, Home Alone, Christmas Vacation—and all are watched in my house in November and December.If you’ve never seen these, please check them out.And speaking of films, what are your favorite holiday movies?Let me know.
For the songs today, let’s highlight some tracks from those great holiday Hughes films.
“I'm not sorry. I did what I did because Buzz humiliated me and since he gets away with everything, I let him have it. And since you're all so STUPID to believe his lies I don't care if your idiotic Florida trip gets wrecked or not! Who wants to spend Christmas in a tropical climate anyway?”
“I know I don't deserve a Christmas, even if I did do a good deed. I don't want any presents. Instead, I want to take back every mean thing I ever said to my family. Even if they don't take back the things they said to me. I don't care. I love all of them... Including Buzz. I know it isn't possible to see them all. Could I just see my mother? I'll never want another thing as long as I live if I can just see my mother. I know I won't see her tonight, but promise me I can see her again. Sometime. Any time. Even if it's just once and only for a couple minutes. I just need to tell her I'm sorry.”
“Allow me to introduce myself, Gus Polinski How are you? Polka King of the Midwest? The Kenosha Kickers? No? That's okay I thought you might have recognized—...Anyways I had a few hits a few years ago. That's why I... Polka, Polka, Polka?(singing) Polka, polka, polka... No? Twin Lakes Polka... Domavougi Polka A.K.A. Kiss me polka...polka twist?”
Judy Garland has the best version of the song, but Mel Torme’s is my favorite, originally featured in Home Alone, which Hughes wrote. Torme was called The Velvet Fog, and for good reason—that voice is smooth. Fans of the television show Night Court might remember that Harry Anderson’s character loved Mel Torme.For some reason, my father loved Nigh Court and Mel Torme. My mother and I saw Home Alone twice in December of 1990. My father had been dead for a few months by that point. It had been a hard year and we hadn’t laughed that much in a long time. Even though I had heard the song plenty of times, when Torme’s song played at the end, I actually listened to the lyrics for the first time. The promise that next year would be better, that someday everyone would be together, and that troubles would be out of sight—it stuck with me. Composer John Williams produced this version and adds his unmistakable instrumentation behind Torme’s warm and endearing vocals. Every time I watch Home Alone, I am reminded of sitting in a dark theater with my mother and laughing until it hurt.
“Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f*cking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.”
“Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?”
I’ve been shoveling the past two days. I’m sore, and not the way a man in a 1940s movie is sore.I’m actually wincing each time I type a letter.So long PC—we’ll see him again next year, I’m sure.We do hope to have another project, but the response to 77 Santas is so strong each year, how can we stop?I just ordered two new Christmas compilations last night so I’m not going anywhere.
Here are some new drawings.We are getting close to 77!It promised to be a doozey.I’ll be here until Wednesday to send all of you into Christmas Eve in style.So get ready—as usual, I’m closing things out with an explosion of goodness.
Ok, people, this is it from me! Thanks for another wonderful year! I hope we've kept you rocking and singing this season. We'd still like to hear your favorite songs. It will give us something to do in the off-season... (hint, hint).
Wow! Overwhelming responses to our call for songs! We'll do our best. You all suggested quite a few we don't know or have yet, but that's what makes this little workshop of ours so great. Here's my post for tonight. I'll answer some requests here the best I can, and throw in a bundle of others in hopes that that's fair trade. Keep the requests coming, though. At least until Tuesday, when we (I think) shut down for the year. I'm done tomorrow.
I'm not the biggest fan of novelty songs. JV can attest to this. Many a night he's had to withstand my crazed rants against novelty songs. This one's ok with me, as is the one we're named after:
JV has yet to post the video link to this, but I love this song: Suzy Snowflake: Rosemary Clooney. Is this a novelty song? "Do I contradict Myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes" Walt Whitman, retired Mall Santa and patron saint of the walkers.
I'll end with a few "non-traditional" numbers, but great this time of year nonetheless.
It's been a quiet year at 77 Santas. Not us--we're bringing the music in abundance. YOU are being quiet. So, here's an offer: list your top 5 Christmas songs in the comment box here and JV and I will do our best to post as many of them as we can. Yep. Bring it. You have until, say, 7pm tonight.
It's time for YOU to help US close out this 77 Santas season. We might have other surprises for you, too.
You want a white Christmas?Well, Central Virginia may have a white winter, because I can’t imagine how this snowy wallop is going away anytime soon.18 inches have piled up outside my house, and it’s still coming down.We might have two feet before all is said and done.But that’s okay.Make some hot chocolate and relax to some Christmas tunes.
We’ve got some great Santa drawings (65, 66 for those keeping score at home) today that put mine to shame.David Gessner was kind enough to pass along some of his drawings.And just for fun, I’m linking to his YouTube videos as well.You know, with this snowstorm blasting the northeast, a lot of people will have to buy some gifts online.If you’re looking for books, you could pick-up Soaringwith Fidel, Return of the Osprey, and Sick of Nature.And you could also get The Gossip of Starlings, written by his wife Nina de Gramont, for readers on your gift list as well.Look at how I just solved shopping problems for you.
Look, it’s not a Christmas song, but it’s by the brilliant Nick Cave (whom PC saw on a street in Chicago this year!).And there’s a good chance we’ll have fifteen feet of pure white snow by the end of the day.
Get rocked by rocked by the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, nerve-breaking, Viagra-taking history-making, legendary E Street Band.
We’re ten days out from the big day.Wow.PC is currently covering his entire neighborhood with fake snow.That’s why you haven’t heard from him lately.But I think he’s got one or two posts left.Enjoy the songs today.And here’s a brand new drawing for you kids!
Three Stooges Santa, Peeping Tom Santa, and Naked Burt Reynolds Santa.Only 18 more to go—and I’ve got some dandies planned.In the next day or so, we should hit our 100,000th visit!Tell your friends.Tell your enemies.Tell those Burt Reynolds fans you know and love.
This one is dedicated to our dear friend, Pookie McSween, spending Christmas far away from the mainland U.S. on an island in the Pacific.But that doesn’t mean that PC and I don’t miss him everyday.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe that Lou Dobbs attempted to have this song banned from the radio for supposedly promoting illegal immigration.That just seems cruel, man. Alright, I go sleep now.
The last I can find, Gayla Peevey lived on the west coast.She left the music industry, became a teacher, and later owned an advertising firm.She’s a grandmother now.By all accounts, it’s been a wonderful life for her, and I wish her many more.And I hope that during this time of year, she knows how much joy this song brings people, especially those of us at 77 Santas.We’ll close out the season with another song by her in a few weeks.
There are only 22 Santas left to be hand-drawn.Today, we had Crying Tim Tebow Santa, Santa Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth Elf—yeah, it was dark.But here we have Lebowski Santas downing some half and half.Clearly you’re not a golfer.
The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. "Vámonos, amigos," he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.
For some reason, this song reminded me of the 1994 film Trapped in Paradise, which I believe took place around Christmastime in the Pennsylvania town of Paradise. Wow, why do I remember that movie?
Sweet Georgia Brown is it cold outside!It’s not even the middle of the month yet but the winter has fully set.This is the first of two posts today.Enjoy!
I’m really baffled as to how this song came to be associated with Christmas.Anyone know?I love this bouncy, horny version (horny as in brass horns, you perverts!).
I'm absolutely nuts over Califone these days. Here's an older song of theirs called On the Steeple with the Shakes (X-mas Tigers). Congrats, too, on their film All My Friends Are Funeral Singers getting picked up by Sundance! Great album of the same name, too!
As JV previously mentioned, we are quite high on The Felice Brothers these days, brought on mostly by seeing them in Virginia, a mere 24 hours after seeing The Possum, where we got hammered drunk and saw a huge fight and ate a whole bag of Doritos in his driveway. Glad you cleaned up and showed up, Possum! Anyhow, here's Murder by Mistletoe, but The Felice Brothers. They refuse to let the murder ballad die, thank God.
I bet Bob Dylan and The Possum got drunk together once or twice, but not while he was recording O'Come All Ye Faithful (Adestes Fideles). You can't sing in Latin while hammered. I tried. At church once, at twelve years old.
A little different post today—I don’t have this song, unfortunately, and we’re going to YouTube it.When I was a kid, I used to listen to Dr. Demento every Sunday night on Magic 99.It was the highlight of my week—yes, those were dark days for me!I taped the songs off the radio… Wow, I’m not doing myself any favors here, am I?Anyway, one of my favorite songs from the doctor’s annual Christmas show was “Santa, Welcome to the Modern World.”Years passed.I all but forgot about this song but then it hit me tonight—just popped into my head.So I did a little Googling on the interwebs and found this.It’s not a video.It’s not an MP3.It’s just the song.If anyone out there has this though, let me know—I’d love it.
The first true snowfall of the year and I couldn’t be happier.Central Virginia doesn’t get nearly enough of the white stuff, and it was all the more beautiful that it came on a weekend, when I could sit in my office at the computer and watch the flakes out the window. Unfortunately, it will be gone too soon, but at least there were a few hours of that silent tranquility.
PC reports a wicked cold front moving into Chi-town.And that means he had to give up eating those fudgesicles.I believe he’s now working with kebob sticks.
The Handsome Family is gothic country at its very best.Whether or not this is a true Christmas song is debatable.However, what’s not up for argument is the awesomeness of this song.
December 04, 2009
Ho Ho Holy Shit! The semester is over!
Time to get to work.
Just a little test run tonight. Please let me know if the links work correctly.
A few of my all time faves, plus one new classic, to kick it off. A greater smorgasbord awaits.
The holidays should usually be a blast, but I realize more and more, my favorite songs of the season aren’t about joy or happiness.They’re about loneliness, death, and sorrow.But relax—I don’t want to depress everyone so I threw in two bouncy tunes to clean your palette of the salty taste of your own tears.
I know PC is enjoying his first snowfall in the second city.The weather forced him to abandon his project of sculpting a life-size Santa out of the mud of Lake Michigan.Now, he’s working on building a life-size replica of Santa’s sleigh out of fudgesicle sticks. And is he ever eating the fudgesicles! I told him to just let them melt but he insisted that it would be cheating.Hopefully he can get a picture up of his progress, just as soon as his body temperature rises to a level where he’s capable of basic hand-eye coordination.
A choice nugget from Mann’s fantastic holiday album, One More Drifter in the Snow, has some fantastic images.There’s just something here that drives you into a depression—the commercialism, the starless sky, and the endless search for comfort.
And yet another song about facing death at Christmas—this one is about the death of Vince Gill’s brother.Gill, a supremely underrated as a modern country artist, has a voice that could carry the weight of Santa’s sleigh.
Today brings a special treat for those who enjoy my Santa drawings—several in one!Maybe I shouldn’t assume anyone enjoys my crude childish drawings.First up, we h
ave Triangle Santa, followed by Iwo Jima Santa.Of course there’s The Old Santa and the Sea.And my favorite of the year thus far, a little tribute to my dearly beaten-up Steelers.Let’s hope no. 43 can get out on the field before he delivers presents this year.
I’ll close out the year with a new Santa (or two) everyday.PC has promised that he is going to hand-sculpt a life-size Santa out of the mud of Lake Michigan.I’m sure he’ll get right on that.
I’ve hopefully fixed the links from the first day.If there are problems today, I’m going to hang my head in shame and find something else.But we’ll try it again.
Year in and year out, I usually love pretty much every version of this song—we’ll certainly post many more.But Fahey is absolutely one of the best musicians to ever pick the guitar.
This one is a bona-fide classic in my book.No matter the eccentricities and drunken debacle, the holiday is ultimately about family.Kudos to Keen for his recent cameo in The New Yorker.
