I have fallen in love with song-poems. For the uninitiated, song-poems are the product of a scam where amateur lyricists would pay to have their “poems” set to music so they could become the Next Big Thing. The producers gave these to their studio musicians to quickly arrange, based on the authors’ requests for tempo, style, and vocalist’s gender, then record in one take. They pressed a few singles or comps for the writers, and that was that.
The American Song Poem Christmas
Various artists
The audience for this album is probably broader than, but largely overlapping with, people who would actually listen to the Shaggs. The main difference would be that the song-poems were recorded with some degree of musical competence, but some of the lyrics are on par with “My Pal Foot Foot.” Some could have just as easily been turned into really bad picture books, with titles like “Randy, The Lil Elf,” “Maury, The Christmas Mouse,” and “The Peppermint Stick Man.”
But, Randy and Maury aside, there are some serious should-be classics here:
- Santa Came On A Nuclear Missile
- Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four?
- How Do They Spend Christmas in Heaven
- The Rocking Disco Santa Claus
This novelty album has it all, from terrorizing Santas to cheating moms to dead people. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, etc. The liner notes call the album “oddly enchanting”—I couldn’t agree more. Recommended for anyone with a solid sense of irony and/or quirky sense of humor.
[ Posted in » Xmas Music Survival Guide ]
