Xmas = family
December 26th, 2008possibly the greatest modern Christmas song ever.
Wow, and that video’s kind of great too, right? I have this real soft spot for Robert Earl Keen. When I was living in England, from 81 – 86, I used to stay up late and set my tape recorder recording when John Peel would start his show. That was the only place to hear hip hop and I was so into rap and breakdancing and stuff. I would dub the rap tracks of the show and build these great 80’s hip-hop compilations. No clue what happened to these tapes.
I couldn’t care less about all the other stuff he was playing, I was just waiting for the rap. The other stuff was "really weird". Years later when I was in high school and really into listening to Top 40 radio, I came across one of those tapes of John Peel’s show. At that point I wasn’t really into the hip-hop OR the "really weird" stuff. But there was this one song that I couldn’t stop listening to. I put it on a mix I made for myself and listened to it over and over. I knew I didn’t like country, but this didn’t seem like country, even it did have that little voice-break bit when he sings a few of the phrases. And it was a waltz. And it had a TROMBONE!
Even now when I hear it it speaks to the ridiculous high school romantic in me; it just totally hits that late-night feeling, and it’s old-timey and sweet, and the narrator is obviously more confident in his story-telling than his romantic prowess. But by the end, all is right with the world. Damn this song is sweet.
[audio:No_Kinda_Dancer.mp3]
You know I’d argue with you that The Darkness trumps Robert Earl but this is definitely up there with the other modern classics. He catalogues it all so perfectly and captures the modern, working class era that has racross the entire country from the deep, dark south to my little Vermont town. I wonder if the Juggalos have taken a turn at rewriting this song. They could start by changing “a can of fake snow” to “a can of Faygo” and work backwards from there.