Bahamian Rhapsody – Joseph Spence and Santa Clause

Without a doubt, it's the most bizarre and jarring version of a traditional holiday song ever recorded. You're not sure if it's serious, a joke, really bad, or genius. Joseph Spence's cover of "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" certainly has its own sound.

Before you pass judgment on this song, consider this. Joseph Spence was born in the Bahamas in 1910, and he is considered a musical hero to the Bahamians. Most of his songs deal a lot less with actual…what do you call them… words, and focuses more on impromptu vocalizations. It's not like he forgot the words to the song, or doesn't speak English very well, that's just his style (you should hear his version of Sloop John B. It's worth the 99 cents on Amazon). Spence also became one of the pioneers of tuning his guitar differently, a technique called "Drop D Tuning". There are some that consider him the "Thelonious Monk of Folk Guitar".

That being said—

Just because something is revolutionary, it doesn't mean that it's genius. Jimi Hendrix strung his guitar upside down. That was genius. An insurance company uses a lizard to sell its product. That's not genius. Spence's musical style falls somewhere in between this spectrum. Granted, it's strange to hear this song as "Sandy Clarw is Coming Heaaaaaaan"; however, there is wiggle room for interesting interpretation for this song. It's not a Shakespearian Sonnet, it's a crappy Christmas song for the love of all things holy. It's a nice curve ball to the mundane repetitive drone we hear from the day after Thanksgiving until 11:59pm on December 25. However, I don't think it's much more than that.

Non Christmas-Christmas Music Volume 2 – Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

It's a little bit of holiday cheer…well, sort of. Tom Wait's signature holiday song really has little to do with Christmas (as the title of this post would indicate).

As Waits is known for his unique prose that are often quite poetic, and yet would make Thoreau blush and maybe even pray, this song is quite simplistic. The plot of the story of the song is the title, "Christmas Card From a Hooker In Minneapolis". This is the inside message of a Christmas card sent to a man named Charlie from an unidentified woman. It's unclear what the relationship between the woman and Charlie is, but you kinda get the sense that Charlie is the poor shlum who has undying feelings for this woman (she is quite aware of it) and has a history of bailing her out of trouble, no matter how much she has screwed up.

The Amsterdam Hotel, on the corner of 9th and Hennepin, could have been a home to a hooker that sent out a Christmas Card.

The only reference to Christmas in the piece is in the title. The song would have a totally different meaning if were titled "Letter From a Hooker In Minneapolis". In fact, some who live in the City of Lakes claim that the song has very little to do with Minneapolis. In the song, the woman states that she lives above a dirty book store on 9^th and Euclid. There is no 9^th and Euclid in Minneapolis. However, there is a 9^th and Hennepin (which is a title to a song Tom would record 7 years later). In the late 70s (when this song was written), 9^th and Hennepin was a seedy part of downtown. If there was a dirty book store, that would be a good location to have one. Since then, that stretch of Hennepin has become the city's theater district.

As the story opens, the woman tells Charlie that she has a man who is a musician. She's with child, and they are about to start a family. The musician is unphased by the fact that he is not the father. She lets on that things are going well for her (except that someone stole her record player). As the song closes, she has her moment of honesty. She says that there is no guy that is taking care of her, and she's in jail. She hints to Charlie that she needs a large sum of money to pay off her lawyer. She butters him up by telling Charlie that there's a possibility that she will be out of the pokey on Valentine's Day.

Several years ago, Neko Case did a cover of this song for a Tom Waits tribute CD. It's strange to say this, but it's almost wrong to hear a female sing this song. Part of the charm of the song is Wait's gruff voice belting out "Charlie I'm Pregnant" to open the song. It's just wrong to hear it otherwise.

Non Christmas-Christmas Music Volume 1: 2000 Miles

This is the first of a two part series. I know that there are other songs that are miscast. However, now that this is the holiday season, I thought that I would focus on two "Christmas songs" that really aren't Christmas songs.

A little more than a year after the VBC launched, I added the song "2000 Miles" by the Pretenders into the regular rotation. Not too long after it stated to play, someone (their identity will remain safe) pulled me aside.

"Why are you playing this song?"

"It's a great song. Why wouldn't I play it?"

"It's February," the person said slowly.

"And?"

"It's a Christmas song."

All I could do is take a deep breath, and shake my head.

To say that "2000 Miles" is a Christmas song is to say that The Godfather is a holiday film. It has to be. There is one scene when Al Martino's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" plays. It's right before Luca Brasi started sleeping with the fishes.

"2000 Miles" is actually about a long distance relationship. At the beginning of the song, Chrissie Hynde's opening line "He's gone," is utterly heartbreaking. Her lover has just left, and that moment has just become the longest possible amount of time before she will be reunited with him. The next time that they will be together will be on Christmas.

That's the only thing that the song has to do with Christmas.



The song has a bit of significance to me. When D and I first got together, we were a long distance relationship. I lived in Minneapolis, and she resided in Costa Mesa, California. We were literally 2000 miles away (according to Google Maps it's only 1,935 miles, but still). "2000 Miles" was the opening track to the second mix CD I made for her, which by the way was not a Christmas CD. Plus, I live in Minnesota. The line "The snow is falling down, it gets colder day by day" can be ANY day…not just "Christmas time". The song pretty much summed up the first few chapters of our relationship, until she moved out here (which when we're at this time of the year, we both wonder why I didn't move to California, Uber Allas).

The song was also miscast in 2007 in an episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. I loved that show (and apparently, only one of 12 people in the country that did), and Aaron Sorkin usually does a great job of using music in his stories, but he really missed the mark for this one. At the conclusion of "The Harriet Dinner Part 2", Danny and Jordan finally get off the roof of Studio 60(and get it on), Matt gets rejected by one of the Bombshell Babies about an hour after he found out that Harriet was considering sleeping with his old rival, and the stage of the Addison Theater gets ripped up because a viper, coyote, and a ferret are trapped underneath. None of these plot points have anything to do with a long distance relationship…or Christmas. To be fair, I know that Sorkin is a fan of the Pretenders, He used "Hymn to Her" in an episode of Sports Night (again, its uses is a stretch for the plot).

The song has been covered a couple of times. KT Tunstall released it couple of years ago for a holiday EP, and Sheryl Crow and Coldplay have taken a crack at it.

Don't get me wrong. I certainly can feel the spirit of the season while listening to "2000 Miles" and sipping on some egg nog or wassail…or whatever's handy. I'd just like to hear a radio station play it during the other 11 months of the year.