No Picture Sunday, But A Blog

Hello, end of weekenders.

Due to blogger and their definition of "a few minutes," there will be no Picture Sunday tonight. Today seemed to be my day to convert to the new Google version of blogger. It promised me it would only take "a few minutes," but after 2 hours-plus it still wasn't complete. I also seem to have lost all of my archives. I don't know if this problem is me-intensive or everyone's having it, but I'm not in the mood to fool with it all tonight. Picture Sunday wouldn't have been very exciting anyway.

I had a two-performance musical kind of day today, and in between my two performances I came home and wrote a blog. I was thinking of keeping it for Tuesday, but since I'm otherwise blogless tonight, I'll go ahead and post it here. As a present. Or a curse. You decide.

Read on.

I'm Spending St Swithen's With My Siblin's

So the 3d Great CD Mix Exchange is over with and the CDs will soon be in the mail, winging their way around the country.

All in all it wasn't the hardest mix, although there were a few that gave me fits. The track listing will be posted in a few days. I think the whole reason this particular mix came about, and why it was a little hurried and has to go out on Monday, is because track #2 on the song list was "a holiday song." And since most people will be choosing Christmas/Chanukah/Kwaanza/Whatever numbers, it was just the right time. And I'm assuming here, because of the time of the year and the plethora of Christmas/Chanukah/Kwaanza/Whatever songs out there. Well, I don't know about Kwaanza, it's still a newly-popularized holiday, but if there's not a plethora now there will be soon.

Stennie and I discussed Christmas Carols on the podcast the other week. Mainly the worst ones, but in doing that I went to several websites to look at lists of carols, and the sheer numbers were mind-blowing. There were Christmas Carols I'd never even heard of. "All This Night My Heart Rejoices?" "Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake?" "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence?" "Warm And Fuzzy Time Of Year?" There's even one called "Percy, The Puny Poinsettia," and I sincerely hope I never do hear it, because something tells me my brain might explode against the wall if this happens. There's one called "New Kid In Town," and something tells me it's not the one I'm familiar with by The Eagles.

So, there are millions of Christmas songs, and another half-million "winter songs," like "Let It Snow," "Winter Wonderland," and "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which I love and feel should be played all winter long, but somehow it only shows up at the Yule. "Over The River And Through The Woods" can go from late November till February, but it doesn't. There's even one New Year's song, well, one that I know of, possibly more, "Let's Start The New Year Right."

And while we're at it, Halloween has its share of songs. OK, they're songs played at Halloween, I don't know of any "My Halloweenie Bikini," or "Bring Out The Flask, I've Got On My Mask." ("It's all so dandy/Just give me some candy/But now that it's tasted/I'd rather get wasted/So bring out your flask/I've...got...on...my...maaaaask!") Sure, you can play "Monster Mash" till you're blue in the face (a good costume, too), and "Haunted House" and "Martian Hop," but I think I can safely say there are no Halloween Carols.

If you'd pull up a list of songs for July 4th, I daresay it would be as long as a list of Christmas Carols, but let's face it, these are simply patriotic songs and can be sung any time of the year. And sadly, are. My confession of the day is that as a rule I absolutely despise patriotic music, a fact that makes it very difficult for me to get excited about playing the Community Band's Bigass Independence Day Extravaganza each year. I can take "You're A Grand Old Flag," and I long just once for us to play "This Land Is Your Land," a song about loving America if there ever was, and if it came up to a vote on a new National Anthem, I'd mark my "x" right beside that one. But I know of no specific Independence Day songs, except that one by Martina McBride, which isn't about the July 4th we all know. There's certainly no "God Bless Our Founding Fathers." ("They signed the declaration/And made their proclamation/So we can take a vacation/All across the nation/So grill some 'dogs and pop a beer/For there's no place as good as here/Bless our Founding Fathers/For Independence Daaaaay!")

(By the way, I'm sure Stennie will burn me on this one with something from "1776.")

Take Memorial Day. Well, don't take it from me, I like the day off. Anyone know a Memorial Day song? I know of no "Let's Remember," or "Place A Wreath." ("Place a wreath for a soldier/With a gun on his shoulder/With a flag unfurled/He fought round the world/So we could have a long weekend.") Or President's Day. If someone came up with a President's Day song, like "I Like Presidents," I might just sing it. ("I like presidents/right to the core/As long as they're nice/And don't take us to war/Some serve four years/And some four again/And while we're at it/Why are they always men?/We could do with a vixen/She'd be better than Nixon/So happy President's Daaaaay!") Well, maybe I wouldn't sing it.

I learned from Elvis Costello and The Chieftans that there's a St Stephen's Day song (a kickass one, too), but how about Epiphany? People all over the world celebrate Epiphany. ("Epiphany! Epiphany!/For this Epiphany/Get me something from Tiffany!") Hey, my sister's right there in the Episcopal Church every year on Maundy Thursday, but I'm hard pressed to find one "I'm Spending Maundy Thursday At Home." ("It'll be a treat/with Mom washing my feet/I'm spending Maundy Thursday at home.") Or even "The Ash Wednesday Without Any Soap." ("The priest, with grace/Drew a cross on my face/It filled me with hope, till I got home but, nope/I'm here on Ash Wednesday without soap.")

I'm just waiting for the first Arbor Day Carol, like "Get Me Something Green For Arbor Day" ("I planted a tree/Now do something for me/It'll grow in the hills/I like ten-dollar bills/So get me something green for Arbor Day"), and wouldn't it be fun to celebrate the official end of summer with a Labor Day song, like "The Worker's Carol?" (Labor Labor Labor!/Each day I toss the caber/I work, so does my neighbor/So let's take Monday off!")

St Patrick's Day is certainly a musical holiday, and there are a thousand songs of the Irish persuasion one could sing to celebrate. "The Wearin' O' The Green" is I guess the closest to an official St Patrick's Day Carol we have, but as long as you're singing something in the "highdee highdee highdee" category and drinking green beer, I don't think anyone's going to find fault with you. Or just put on a Pogues album and let the good times roll. Hell, you can even sing "The Unicorn" and it's all right by me, as long as you do it with that brogue The Irish Rovers used when they recorded the number. But still, I long for something like "I'm Seeing Double On St Patrick's Day." ("I drank five pints of Irish Brown/And staggered all around the town/With all the green in different shades/I got so drunk, saw two parades/Two mayors on floats/I had sex with two goats/I'm seeing double on St Patrick's Daaaaay!") Leave out the beastiality and you might have a holiday classic.

And so, what about St Swithen's Day? I'd have never even have known this day existed had it not been for a joke on "The Bob Newhart Show" back in the 70s. It not only apparently has to do with the weather, but also apparently already has its own song, by Billy Bragg (who would probably join in a chorus of "The Worker's Carol" with me). Since I don't know his version and if it's really about the day or just something that happened on it, I feel compelled to write "I'm Spending St Swithen's With My Siblin's," anyway. ("I'm spending St Swithen's with my siblin's/We're cooking up a giant pot of chitlins/Look through the window pane/I think it's gonna rain/And our mobilehome is gonna wash awaaaay!") I don't know, I think there need to be more mentions of mobilehomes in holiday songs. (By the way, St Swithen's Day is all about rain in July, as is "The Music Man," kind of.)

We have to honor our folks on Mother's and Father's Days. There's "Mammy" (how I love ya! - no, wait, that's "Swannee"), and that horrible old standard about "put them all together they spell 'Mother'," which I can't remember the words of right now ("M is for the meatloaf that she made me/O is for the oatmeal with no lumps?"), but there are precious few father songs out there, save for "Oh Mein Papa," and that song Paul Petersen sang on "The Donna Reed Show" lo those many years ago. Parents need their own carols. ("You're a terrific mother/You always blamed my brother/So Happy Mother's Daaaaay!") ("You were always a good father/Though we weren't worth the bother/So Happy Father's Daaaaay!") (My carols all seem to end with big Broadway showstopping techniques, don't they?)

And on and on. The world needs a "Grandparents Spoil You Rotten," "A Dragon Bit Me On Chinese New Year," "I'm Taking A Sauna on Rosh Hoshannah," "It's A Lonely Martin Luther King, Jr Day Without You," "When It's Armed Forces Day In Dear Old Dixie," "Happy Sweetest Day To The Sourest Gal I Know," "The Best Thing About May Day Is That It's Pay Day," "Let's Eat Turkey Till We Bust," and "Fuck The First Weekend After New Years, Because College Football Is No More."

But I'm not writing those. I've bored the world enough for one night. I'll bet anything could beat "Percy, The Puny Poinsettia," though.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Other than playing music, about the only thing I got done was watching episodes of "That Girl" on TVLand. If they had Donald Hollinger in the Sears catalog, I'd order him right now.