Tag: Christmas

“Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” (1979) * Written by Randy Brooks * Produced by Gary Potterton * Label: Oink * Charts (first appearance): Billboard Christmas (#1) * Chart Entry: 12/17/83

In his Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells and Silent Nights, Ronald D. Lankford, Jr., reports that songwriter Randy Brooks had found inspiration for “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” from Merle Haggard’s “Grandma’s Homemade Christmas Card” (1973). In that recording, Haggard describes his subject against the steel guitar backdrop of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” with all cues pointing toward a maudlin death that never happens. So Brooks took that as a challenge (and stole the VII⁷-IV-I hook from Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December” along the way). After showing his creation to Elmo and Patsy, who recorded it on their own label in 1979, the record became America’s favorite perennial Christmas crudity. It could be that songs that never go away contain some sort of open-ended message that keeps our subconscious minds engaged. In this song, it’s most certainly the refrain “as for me and Grandpa, we believe.” The word “believe” is loaded with yuletide pixie dust as it is, but that seven-word line alludes to 1) factual reality (the belief that Grandma got run over), 2) a statement of faith (the belief that there must really be a Santa Claus, with Grandma’s possibly fortuitous death offered up as evidence), and 3) a fearful warning (the belief that Santa lives, and he may not only withhold presents from you but he might also kill you). Additional interpretations are by all means conceivable. Side B is a penance-flip that plays Christmas straight.

“All Things Must Pass” (1970) – Billy Preston * Written by George Harrison * Produced by Billy Preston and George Harrison * LP: Encouraging Words * Label: Apple

Billy Preston’s Beatle connections went all the way back to 1962 Liverpool, when the starstruck foursome warmed up for their idol Little Richard, who included Preston in his touring group. So when Preston sat in on organ for their Get Back sessions in 1969, the comfortable music he made with them testified of their old-friend status. He recorded two albums for their Apple label, That’s the Way God Planned It (1969) and Encouraging Words (1970), with co-production and guitar work by the symbiotically God-conscious George Harrison. For Encouraging Words, Harrison allowed Preston to roll out two of his own songs, “My Sweet Lord” and “All Things Must Pass,” in September 1970, two months before he’d release his own versions. For his iteration of “All Things Must Pass” (which puts parentheses around “must” on the label), Preston adapts the song to an arrangement reminiscent of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song,” working its way up to the IV in the verse beginnings, then scooting back down (III-II-I). By then the Christmas season market had become (and would continue to be) a major part of the Beatles’ commercial legacy, with Harrison’s All Things Must Pass release date of November 27, 1970, being a case in point. It’s hard not to hear Preston’s approach as some sort of St. Nicholas eye-wink, complete with falling snowflake strings at the end.

“Song of the Death Machine” (1970) – Bruce Haack * Written by Bruce Haack * Produced by Leroy Parkins * LP: The Electric Lucifer * Label: Columbia

Bruce Haack, the late Canadian electro music inventor and experimentalist, has such a reputation as an outsider that it’s easy to forget that his best known album came out with major label backing on Columbia Records. The Electric Lucifer, though, maintains the sort of homegrown, folk art charm that Moog masters, as a rule, are not expected to project. Haack’s liner notes declare his wish to end war with his music and also find him dwelling on the Milton/Blake subject matter of war in heaven. Standing on a larger stage than usual, Haack meant to unleash a “powerlove” so effective it could bring about the transformation and forgiveness of even Lucifer, the fallen “love angel.” The Christian angle gets more musically explicit near the end with yuletide signifiers. “Requiem” resolves into “The First Noel,” while “Song of the Death Machine” takes melodic cues from “Stars Were Gleaming, Shepherd Dreaming,” a children’s carol published in 1946 for the Presbyterian Hymns for Primary Worship (with lyrics by Nancy Byrd Taylor). But the music came from Poland, that most Christmasy of all Eastern Bloc nations, where it’s always been known as “W Żlobie leży” (in the manger).

“Dawn” (1974) – Slapp Happy * Written by Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad * LP: Slapp Happy * Label: Virgin

Although Slapp Happy were one-third American (Peter Blegvad, later to create the surreal Leviathan comic strip), another third German (Dagmar Krause), and the final third British (Anthony Moore), they took shape in Hamburg and had an independent krautrock sensibility. This means that it’s not clear, when listening to the trio’s first two albums, if they’re being facetious, earnest, or experimental, because they’re being all three. “Dawn” sounds like they’re riffing on the Grass Roots or Tom Jones’s “She’s a Lady” but with retreat bugle calls and elliptical words about someone, in fact, in retreat. It also includes two separate insertions of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”