The thought of making an only Xmas music blog was appealing for today, but lacks in evergreen-ness (if that’s a word). Sure, it could be fun to hear the Less Than Jake cover of “Grandma got run over by a reindeer”, the MU330, RBF, or Mustard Plug Christmas albums, or even 2 tone Christmas tunes from The Selecter. The only problem is that starting Sunday, all of those songs are insta-skips.
Instead, I took a little liberty with these, as they are holiday-ish songs.
Jimmy Eat World “Christmas Card”
So, this one is a bit on the nose despite the “adjacent” part of the blog title. Bear with me though. This isn’t a cover of an Xmas classic or a jolly song littered with sleigh bells. This track appears on the extended version of one of my all time favorite albums, Clarity.
It’s a bit odd though, as I have all the songs on the album connected in my head from continuous repeated play. Not sure where this would fit, but it got placed after “Goodbye Sky Harbor” on the re-release. Sure, lots of people will listen through the 16+ minute musical journey before getting to this hard rocking track. Likely story.
Don’t worry reader, I know you’re thinking “what about ‘12.23.95’ or the Bleed American b-side ‘Last Christmas’”? Agreed, they are great songs that would fit this blog as well.
I saw in some YouTube comments that the “Christmas card postmarked December 23” lyrics from this track do actually reference the same event from “12.23.95”. I’ll just trust this commenter and do no further research to prove it.
RX Bandits “You for Christmas”
I saw this popup on some #SkaTwitter threads yesterday, so I looked up the video below. On the first listen, I still knew 90% of the lyrics and all of the music. It was featured on the Christmas Gone Wrong Drive-Thru Records comp, but doesn’t seem to exist outside of YouTube these days. In searching for the CD, I could only find the DTR Welcome to the Family comp.
No worries though, because the song heavily pulls from the melody and rhythm of the RXB song “Wrong With Me”. Try listening back to back, it’s interesting to see what they used from the original. That’s the song I’ll add to the Friday and whatnot Spotify playlist, since the one below isn’t available. Keep in mind, this is the late 90s incarnation of the group, the Halfway Between Here and There record ska days.
Bad Religion “American Jesus”
This track has few things going for it as far as a holiday song:
- About the Birthday Boy, Big JC himself
- Appears on the 2013 Bad Religion album Christmas Songs
More Fun Facts about this track and Bad Religion:
- Eddie Vedder sings backing vocals on the original Recipe For Hate version of the song. He is a big Bad Religion fan and was in LA at the time of the recording.
- I still hear the band’s name in the odd tone from the Goldfinger song “The City with Two Faces (f*ck LA)”. A sampling of the song’s lyrics: “[LA’s] got some great bands, NOFX, Bad Religion…”, “you can’t really surf unless you wanna get hepatitis”, and “You’re asking who’s Keith Morris / Yeah, you’re punk rock.”
