Hark, Herald Angels! It’s milestone time! For our latest experiment in extremes, Ian tries to claim the highest spot with a special recording by an artist who you may be shocked is not yet on our list. Then RJ runs some calculations to decide which of the world’s worst holiday songs we’re going to expose ourselves to this year and lands on a toxic family drama.
Thanks for listening, and be nice to your pets!
It’s World Oceans Day, and in honor of that big blue sea we listen to “Christmas Under the Sea” by The Aqua Kids, which is impressively heavy on sea creature references but pretty light on non-magical ocean conservation tips. Then we contemplate H20 in a different state of matter with a wildly different winter song – “01 Have You Seen It In the Snow?” by The Magnetic Fields.
Thank you again to Joe for requesting The Magnetic Fields’ song!
National Doughnut Day seems to get earlier every year, eh? This year, instead of celebrating with those delicious sufganiyot, we kick of the episode with a different Hanukkah treat: “My Baby Eats All the Hanukkah Gelt” by Alexis Fishman. Then it’s a another sugary indulgence: “Christmas Cookies” by George Strait, who definitely knows what cookies are but is maybe less clear on sprinkles and also sex.
We learn a lot in this episode – about music, about ourselves, and about New Kids on the Block. I guess mostly that last thing. We are, for reasons that are not quite clear even to us, covering two songs on the basis of their inclusion of the word “funky”: “Funky New Year” by The Eagles and “Funky Funky Xmas” by New Kids On the Block. We’re dreaming of a white, funky Christmas.
This week we’re back to requests! “The Atheist Christmas Carol” by Vienna Teng delights us with its beauty and complexity, while “Snow in Los Angeles” by Dead Sara delivers some mixed messages.
The post by Benito Cereno that RJ mentions in this episode can be found here!
Thank you to Emily for requesting this week’s songs!
This Sunday is Mother’s Day, so we’re listening to two songs about Mother Christmas! The first – “Mother Christmas” by J.S. Ondara – uses the right nomenclature, but is actually a sincere, transcendent lament about missing one’s mom (if Mother’s Day is a tough day for you, maybe skip this one!). “Mrs. Santa Claus” by Nat King Cole, however, offers a saccharine salute to Father Christmas’s put-upon wife – who does all the housework, menial tasks, and emotional labour? It’s Mrs. Santa Claus!
This week is MAY the FOURTH, so you know what that means! That’s right, it’s Rhode Island Independence Day!! We celebrate with holiday songs by two bands from our beloved little home state, “Holy Shit It’s Christmas” by Deer Tick and “All I Want for Xmas” by Draco and the Malfoys.
Find the playlist of Deer Tick’s favorite winter holiday music that was mentioned in this episode here!
This week, we cover two requests for songs about Christmas wishes – mature, adult Christmas wishes. “My Grown Up Christmas List” by Amy Grant is a sentimental classic that doesn’t quite pull our heartstrings, while “I Want a Boob Job for Christmas” by Virginia Kegel is a theatrical romp exemplifying the immature version of “mature” content.
Thank you to anonymous and Dylan for the requests!
OK, look. We’ve run out of funny things to say about April 20th, the weed holiday, here in the episode description. But we will never, ever run out of winter holiday songs about weed: for 4/20/2018, we listen to “Weed (All I Want for Christmas)” by Nellie McKay and “Have a Willie Nice Christmas” by Kacey Musgraves featuring Willie Nelson.
This week on HARK, we cover two songs by request: the haunting reverie of Loreena McKennitt’s “In Praise of Christmas” and the playful brevity of the Squirrel Nut Zipper’s “Winter Weather”. We also have our biggest disagreement about a song since covering Ian’s sworn enemies The Killers!
Thank you to merikus for the requests!