Five Songs About ... Thanksgiving

Blogs

Contact Us

Send Comments and Tips to: City Pages Blogs

RSS Feeds

National Features >

Broward-Palm Beach New Times
Sexual Healing
For Florida's sole remaining sex surrogate, love is a many splintered thing.
By Michael J. Mooney
City Pages
Your Friendly Neighborhood War Profiteer
It's not just giant companies cashing in on America's defense industry.
By Jeff Severns Guntzel
The Pitch
Supersizing Sonic
How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the "Sonic Guys."
By Justin Kendall
Houston Press
Temples of Tex-Mex
A diner's guide to Texas's oldest Mexican restaurants.
By Robb Walsh

« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »

Filed under: 5 Songs About

Compared with other holidays, Thanksgiving hasn't inspired bards overmuch. There are no traditional hymns, no instantly identifiable music associated with the day save possibly various football broadcast bumpers.

Nevertheless, here and there we find certain songs that -- in lyric or in spirit -- fit the theme of the day. For the first installment of a new, recurring blog feature, we hunted down five such songs for your Thanksgiving listening pleasure.

We plan to do a similarly-themed post once a month or so, with songs about different themes and events during the year. Use the comments to talk about the songs, or to suggest your own potential additions to the list.

5. Adam Sandler -- The Thanksgiving Song
Before Adam Sandler's magnum opus about Hannukah, there was his fractured effort about Turkey Day. Performed on Saturday Night Live with a brief assist from Kevin Nealon, Sandler's silly song may be the first holiday hymn to mention both Mike Tyson and venereal disease -- though hopefully not the last. (Due to NBC's video fascism, you can't see the original version, but this live version has the same feel. Note to the Peacock: Information wants to be free, tough guy.)

4. William Burroughs -- A Thanksgiving Prayer
Feeling thankful? Got a warm sensation of fellowship with other human beings? Smiling after watching the Sandler video? William S. Burroughs can take care of that for you. Okay, it's a spoken-word piece and not a song. If Kurt Cobain had lived longer, I'm sure he'd have performed musical accompaniment to this the way he did Burroughs' "The Priest They Called Him." Sadly, Cobain killed himself, possibly after listening to this concentrated burst of depressing.

3. Spencer the Gardener -- The Gobble Song
From scathing social commentary to sweet and endearing testaments to food, this catchy tune from indie roots group Spencer the Gardener is a non-ironic celebration of Thankgiving's central component: the meal. The down-home feel of the song makes it possibly the only tune on this list indisputably suitable for mixed company. Warning: earworm potential.

2. The Dead Milkmen -- The Best Thanksgiving Ever (live)
Available on the band's 1992 "If I Had a Gun" EP, this live introduction to the band's classic "Bitchin' Camaro" is the story of young Timmy and, as the title suggests, his Best Thanksgiving Ever. But as you'd expect from the Milkmen, this tale is twisted, and Timmy is not actually the hero. The hero is invisible to the human eye. To say more would be unseemly, and unfortunately there are no video or audio representations of this song available on the Internets so far as I am aware. Seek it out. It's worth it. Until then, read the lyrics here.

1. Arlo Guthrie -- Alice's Restaurant
Guthrie's Vietnam-era chestnut is rambling, surreal narrative that is simultaneously folk art, political criticism, and communal performance project. It found its way onto the entire 'A' side of a record, into a film, and into our collective culture. And it all began two Thanksgivings ago (or was it 40?). Watch a live performance here. The lyrics are here.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 21, 2007 12:15 PM

« M.I.A. Comes Back With Power: Review by Sarah Askari | Main | Katrina refugee: A Q&A with author Michael Tisserand »

Comments

Don't forget the Too Much Joy classic "Thanksgiving in Reno"

At the $5.99 buffet
reno on thanksgiving day
nobody seemed to care
why anyone else was there

Posted by: Demko at November 21, 2007 3:29 PM

Hey CP,
I used to tune into a local radio station every year to catch their annual spin of Alice's Restaurant on Thanksgiving Day...you nailed it. And yeah, it might as well have been 2 years ago. True. And a little sad.

Posted by: Loren Depping at November 23, 2007 10:07 PM

Yeah, yeah it's Sunday. Some people don't even have turkey left.

But I can't let this go without mentioning Stan Freberg's "Take an Indian to Lunch".

Posted by: ThresherK at November 25, 2007 1:11 PM

Contact Us

RSS Feeds

Categories

Archives

Recent Entries

Links

National Features >

Broward-Palm Beach New Times

Sexual Healing

By Michael J. Mooney

City Pages

Your Friendly Neighborhood War Profiteer

By Jeff Severns Guntzel

The Pitch

Supersizing Sonic

By Justin Kendall

Houston Press

Temples of Tex-Mex

By Robb Walsh