Here’s a good Christmas song category: Christmas songs that mention a place, other than Bethlehem.
Here’s an amazing one — set in the economically depressed Utica (Mohawk Valley) area, near where I grew up.
Give me other examples!
by DougJ| 56 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
Here’s a good Christmas song category: Christmas songs that mention a place, other than Bethlehem.
Here’s an amazing one — set in the economically depressed Utica (Mohawk Valley) area, near where I grew up.
Give me other examples!
Comments are closed.
Brian R.
Run-DMC, “Christmas in Hollis”
Phylllis
Christmas in Dixie by Alabama. And Home for the Holidays by anyone who has ever jumped on the Christmas album
griftbandwagon.chopper
again, Fairytale of New York.
it’s the perfect song. it meets all criteria. suck it, assholes.
trollhattan
Don’t think 2000 Miles by The Pretenders mentions a specific place but still manages to evoke a sense of place.
Speaking of music, if you lucky bastards living in LA (a phrase I seldom use) don’t go see this show, you are dead to me.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
One of my all-time favorites, Harvey Danger’s “Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)” starts off in “a studio apartment in a dull part of Seattle.”
Dr. Dave
The “verse” section of White Christmas (which comes before the part that everyone knows) explains that the singer is only dreaming of a White Christmas because s/he is in “Beverly Hills, LA” with green grass and palm trees.
CaptainBringdown
“Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto”
– James Brown
Greg
“Tennessee Christmas”, Amy Grant
sharl
Christmas at K-Mart, by Root Boy Slim & the Sex Change Band.
Yatsuno
“Christmas at Ground Zero”
Weird Al Yankovic.
You never said it had to be specific.
Amir Khalid
@Yatsuno:
I was going to mention that. Pout.
low-tech cyclist
In another thread, a commenter mentioned John McCutcheon’s “Christmas in the Trenches,” which was about the 1914 ‘Christmas Truce.’
Hawes
Pogues!
Also, too: The Wexford Carol
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid: Sowwy. I type slower next time.
trollhattan
OT Morans for a
newold generation. Go get you some terrorit compiracy right here.GregB
Cold White Christmas by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.
“At home is a photograph you taped to your wall/ It’s gonna be a cold… white Christmas in St. Paul.”
chopper
speaking of which, i could go for some steamed hams.
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
The guy spelled “OBAMA”, “ADMiNiSTRATiON”, “WITH” and “CASTRO” right. Give him a teensy bit of credit for that.
esc
When I was a little girl, my dad had a tape of the Vin Scelsa show he played endlessly around Christmas. It had a song called Christmas Morning by Loudon Wainwright that is mostly about New York, though I’m not sure it says so specifically. Reminds me a lot of those times in the minivan.
Porco Rosso
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ-xfh75cMM Much joy with Louis
MaryRC
Christmas in New Orleans — Louis Armstrong’s version. Lovely song.
Your cares will disappear
When you hear
Hallelujah
Old St. Nicholas is here
When it’s Christmas time in New Orleans.
Tree With Water
When I think of the Mohawk Valley, I think of Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert carving a fine life for themselves, that is, until the one-eyed rat bastard John Carradine and his native mercenaries try to burn it down.
I nominate Little Town of Bethlehem. A fun fact about that song:
Captured in the Ardennes wearing American uniforms, German infiltrators were serenaded with Xmas carols by captured German nurses the night before their execution in December, 1944. That’s a true story, so be sure to share it with the children on Xmas eve just before they’re off to bed.
Mike J
It’s an instrumental, but St Etienne have a song called Snowbound on the Southbank.
delk
Christmas In Jail
The Youngsters
Amir Khalid
How can we forget Christmas In Heaven?
Omnes Omnibus
Christmas in Prison by John Prine
scav
Needed slight detour: Hannukah in Santa Monica
balconesfault
There’s Christmas in Austin … I suspect that there’s lots of local band variations on highlighting a given towns holiday highlights.
Or are we Austinites that unique? I mean, I know we like to think we are …
ThresherK
Diversion time: Looking for a particular holiday song that sounded like a newish punk record (a lot like Green Day) where the singer professed to having holiday cheer foisted on him, and finally went after “satan’s little helpers” with a baseball bat. He ended up in jail where another inmate “went up his chimney” or some other euphemism for…you know.
I’ve found more than my share of songs with a snippet of lyric, but this one has me stumped.
balconesfault
And Harlingen Texas gets a mention in Robert Earle Keene’s “Merry Christmas from the Family” – which is a hoot and a holler.
In the same genre, there’s Bruce Robinson’s “Oklahoma Christmas”
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
My theory: different guys took turns drawing the words because, “Ritin’ makes me taard.”
trollhattan
@balconesfault:
Doubt you’re the only little blue dot surrounded by a red sea of idiocy in our fair nation, but your red sea is certainly ginormous.
Bozeman, Montana comes to mind.
ThresherK
@ThresherK: Okay, don’t know why I didn’t try the precise set of words before, but it’s “I Won’t Be Home For Christmas” by Blink 182.
Slamhole
Christmas in Prison- John Prine
Chokes me up even after all these years of being free
The search light in the big yard
Swings round with the gun
And spotlights the snowflakes
Like the dust in the sun
It’s Christmas in prison
There’ll be music tonight
I’ll probably get homesick
I love you. Goodnight.
bg
Garth Brooks, Belleau Wood (Christmas Truce of 2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiBbiyZoeps
Merle Haggard, If We Make it through December
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/merlehaggard/ifwemakeitthroughdecember.html
Mike in NC
@trollhattan: To be fair, maybe those old farts have only lived in Miami for the past 50 years, and haven’t had time to master the English language.
mainmati
Well, from my hometown there is this ditty with a classic Pittsburgh accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnWgjSZqv80. “Santa Claus is comin’ dahntahn”
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Point taken. “Why won’t they learn ENGLISH?!” Where have I heard that before?
Am a little concerned Henry Winkler seems to have joined them.
hamletta
@sharl: Damn! Beat me to it!
@bg: One broke Christmas (aren’t they all?) I went shopping and couldn’t find anything anybody would like, and I couldn’t afford anything anyway. On the way home, Merle came on the radio, and I cried so hard, I don’t know how I didn’t drive straight into a tree.
dnfree
Detroit, December. I can’t find a good video of it, but it’s another gritty song about working in the factory.
dnfree
Found it, John McCutcheon. Detroit, December
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y5-bCKc5WA
MattF
Somewhat off-topic… When I was a grad student, we had a contest to come up with a pun on the name of a Christmas song that involved the name of a fish. Yes, there’s some eschatological significance there.
Anyhoo, my entry was “Little Tuna Bethlehem”, which was declared the winner. The runner-up was “Shark, The Herald Angels Sing.”
MichaelSheridan
Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime, by Jonathon Coulton
m.youtube.com/watch?v=B3DyxaCYlfg
Donut
Damn it, Doug. How do you expect me to turn the mind to Xmas tunes when you quote one of my all time favorite songs in the post title?
Well, it’s hotter ‘n blazes and all the long faces
there’ll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
there’ll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo
from Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander
with newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives
the train stopped in Serviceton less and less often
There’s nothing sadder than a town with no cheer
Vic Rail decided the canteen was no longer
necessary there
no spirits, no bilgewater and 80 dry locals
and the high noon sun beats a hundred and four
there’s a hummingbird trapped in a closed down shoe
store
This tiny Victorian rhubarb
kept the watering hole open for sixty five years
now it’s boilin’ in a miserable March 21st
wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson’s curse
the train smokes down the xylophone
there’ll be no stoppin’ here
all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
no Bourbon, no Branchwater
though the townspeople here
fought her Vic Rail decree tooth and nail
now it’s boilin’ in a miserable March 21st
wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson’s curse
the train smokes down the xylophone
there’ll be no stopping here
all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer
NotMax
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
Mele Kalikimaka
Also too, Happy Hanukkah.
GR
@chopper:
Following on, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” also mentions a place (Los Angeles) so I guess it is the best ever Christmas song in this category, too.
I don’t think “Father Christmas” by the Kinks specifically mentions a location, but it’s very specific to late-70’s working-class England.
bg
@hamletta: That’s why I love country music. the stories are real. I hope this Christmas is better for you
Curt
“Winter in the Hamptons” by Josh Rouse
“St. Veit” by Still Flyin’a
Zinsky
It’s probably appropriate that a place other than Bethlehem is mentioned in a Christmas song since the likelihood that Jesus Christ was born there is near zero. The Gospels of Mark and John don’t even mention the place and the supposed reason for Joseph and Mary to go there (a census) makes no sense since censuses were done in Roman-occupied lands to levy taxes, not count heads. The census takers would be more interested in the assets where you lived (i.e. Nazareth), not where the husband was born (which is highly doubtful on its own. The gospels of Luke and Matthew place Jesus there to convince reluctant Jews he was the Messiah, since the prophet Isaiah said he would come from the lineage of King David.
hells littlest angel
“Christmas With Satan” by James Chance. A party in Hell.
http://youtu.be/I3j595DBxI0
balconesfault
@MattF: Not “Koi to the World!”?
Bill Murray
Boston in Florence Dore’s “Christmas”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwzaKsVTSk0
although it’s more an anti-Christmas song despite the title
notorious JRT
Perry Como – No Place Like Home For the Holidays
Annamal
An atheist antipodes christmas carol
Tim Minchin’s “White Wine in the Sun”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q
Far more feels than it should have.
seasonal songster
I’m a big Xmas song enthusiast. In addition to the ones already mentioned, these also come to mind. I’m sure I could find more if I searched my hard-drive.
Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant — Diamond Rugs
(A collaboration between members of Deer Tick, The Black Lips, Los Lobos, Dead Confederate, and Six Finger Satellite)
Christmas in Harlem — Kanye West
Christmas in Chicago — Leon Russell
1972 B-side to “Slipping into Christmas”
Christmas in L.A. — The Killers feat. Dawes
Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis — Tom Waits
Christmas in Capetown — Randy Newman
Christmas in Heaven — Monty Python
Christmas in the Stars — C3PO et al.
From the terrific Christmas in the Stars LP!
Christmas in Vietnam — Johnny & John
My copy is from the Rhino “Bummed Out Christmas” compilation.
The Night Before Christmas (In Texas, That Is) — Gene Autry
Christmas in Washington — Steve Earle
No Christmas in Kentucky — Phil Ochs
seasonal songster
Oh, yes … and
Christmas in New Zealand — The Long Ryders