A Christmas Duel: The Hives vs. Cyndi Lauper

Also: Neil, Babs, and why there are a ton more great Christmas songs than Hanukkah ones

this great song will be discussed….after a few words by our sponsors.

Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand, two of the most famous Jewish singers of the past 50 plus years, have recorded more than a half dozen Christmas albums between them.

Babs:

A Christmas Album (1967)

Christmas Memories (2001)

The Christmas Collection (2005)

The Classic Christmas Album (2013)

Neil:

The Christmas Album (1992)

A Cherry Cherry Christmas (2009)

Acoustic Christmas (2016)

And I’m probably missing a couple more.

Now let’s count the number of Chanukah albums these two brilliant Jewish artists have released.

I’m waiting.

What’s that again?

The Jazz Singer? Yentl?

Oh yeah, I forgot about those classic Hanukkah tunes “America” and “Hello Again” and “Love on the Rocks.”

Oh the memories I have of my family gathered around the menorah, singing “We’re coming to America….Today!” and “Love on the rocks/Ain’t no surprise/Just pour me a drink (of Manischewitz) and I’ll tell you some lies.”

And who can forget those Yentl Chanukah classics “Papa Can You Hear Me? (Over the Sound of the Dreidel)” and “The Way He Makes Me Feel (so Shvitzy).”

For you goyim (non-Jews), that is what we call sarcasm.

I’m sure I’m not the only one with questions. Such as:

Why is it that two of the greatest Jewish singers and songwriters in history, have never recorded an album of Hanukkah songs?

I have three theories about this.

One: Christmas albums are way more lucrative than Hanukkah albums.

Two: Hanukkah songs kind of suck.

Three: TV played a larger role in this imbalance than is recognized.

Let’s break it down in my patented rambling fashion.

Theory #1: Christmas records are more lucrative and reach a far wider audience than Hanukkah records.

This is obviously true. Population statistics make this one a no brainer.

A quick Google search reveals that, in the U.S., 2.6% of the population consider themselves Jewish, while 63 percent identify as Christian (down from 78 just ten years ago). So let’s adjust the numbers slightly and say 69 percent of Americans call themselves Christian and for the Jews it’s 3 percent — for math simplicity. That means that there ought to be 1/23rd the number of Hanukkah songs as Christmas songs, all things being equal.

Of course not all things are equal. In fact no things are equal except for those blue artificial sweetener packets.

So it makes sense that Christmas albums far outweigh Chanukah records in the marketplace. But the ratio is not 1 to 23, per population balance. It’s more like 1 to 500.

Sure I just made that number up, but go do your own research. See how many new Christmas albums are released each year and compare it to the number of Chanukah ones. I rest my case.

Theory #2: Hanukkah songs, for the most part, kind of suck.

I’m a perfect example of this imbalance.

I’m a Jew with a hearty record collection. I have exactly 3 Hanukkah albums and about 50 Christmas albums.

Not because I like Christmas songs better (though I do), but because there just aren’t many good Hanukkah ones out there. I’m sure I’m just not looking in the right places. Maybe I haven’t yet found that elusive Frank Sinatra Hanukkah album or David Lee Roth’s 8 Wild and Crazy Nights on CD yet. (That one seems like it should exist, no?)

The Hanukkah albums I do have? Pretty much all of them are parody albums, like 2 Live Jews’ As Kosher as They Wanna Be, and What I Like About Jews’ Unorthodox. And those are not even Chanukah albums as much as comedy records playing off Jewish stereotypes.

In terms of recognizable tunes, there are about a hundred Christmas-themed ones. Here’s off the top of my head:

Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Silent Night, Little Drummer Boy, O Holy Night, Feliz Navidad, Jingle Bells, White Christmas….I only stopped to maintain a manageable word count.

Now I’ll list recognizable Hanukkah songs:

Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel, The Hora, Oh Hanukkah

That’s it. And The Hora is a wedding song, not a Hanukkah song.

Despite this lack of tuneage, I did find enough to make a Chanukah playlist, which you can listen to here:

Theory #3: TV played a larger role in this imbalance than is recognized.

TV

I grew up watching Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas and Santa Claus is Coming To Town and probably a dozen other shows from my youth that are still being shown today.

I loved those shows, and even though I haven’t seen them in decades, I can sing every single song from them off the top of my head. What comes to mind right away is this classic from Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you'll be walking 'cross the floor
You put one foot in front of the other
And soon you'll be walking out the door

If you want to change your direction
If your time of life is at hand
Well, don't be the rule; Be the exception
A good way to start is to stand

It’s a catchy tune with a great message and it really has little to do with religion. I think that’s what made these animated films so effective. They were not dogmatic or preachy or especially religious. Their main lessons could be summed up as the following:

Everyone is struggling so be kind to people, and follow your heart not your head.

Those bible-thumping right-wingers would likely call this interpretation commie-hippie liberal snow-flake bullshit. What I say back to them?

Peace and love mother fuckers!

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Since the beginning of broadcast television, nearly every series outside of maybe The Goldbergs, has had a “very special Christmas” episode. Don’t believe me?

Here’s a short list of 38 classic Christmas episodes as determined by Good Housekeeping:

On this list are such shows as: The Office (British and American), Friends, New Girl, Ted Lasso, Golden Girls, I Love Lucy and….Seinfeld.

Seinfeld to its credit chose to celebrate Festivus, not Chanukah or Christmas, so that puts it a step above the rest in my book. (Though both Christmas and Hanukkah get recognition in a few holiday episodes.)

Now I’ll list all the TV specials and TV shows that feature “very special Hanukkah” episodes:

I literally couldn’t think of any, but According to Screen Gems there have been a few.

Big Mouth (animated series on Netflix), Rugrats (kids’ animated series), The Nanny (Fran Drescher in what is considered one of the most Jewishy sitcoms ever — yet didn’t feature Chanukah until season 6), and the aforementioned The Goldbergs. I’m pretty sure Brooklyn Bridge, the short-lived drama by Gary David Goldberg (creator of Family Ties) had a Chanukah episode.

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. We Jews are the best complainers and exaggerators in the 45 billion years of human existence. But we also take action when we see a wrong that needs to be righted.

An example of this occurred in 1994, when Adam Sandler realized the same thing I did about the dearth of Hanukkah songs. Instead of writing a Substack, he decided to do something about it.

My Earworm Christmas Tune 2022

As I was putting together my annual holiday playlist, I decided to search for some new Christmas songs. One that I hadn’t heard before appeared and knocked my stockings off.

The song, my “new” favorite Christmas song, is “A Christmas Duel” by The Hives and Cyndi Lauper. The song was released more than a decade ago (2011), so probably many of you already know it, but as much as I try to keep up with the trends of the day, I’m often far, far behind the curve.

What I love about “A Christmas Duel” is how rude and crude the lyrics are, yet ultimately, like those wise animated Christmas specials I grew up watching, the message is one of acceptance and inclusion.

Take the first two verses of the song. The first is sung by Hives’ frontman Pelle Almqvist and the second by Lauper:

I bought no gifts this year
And I slept with your sister
I know I should have thought twice
Before I kissed her
But with the year we had last
And the dress that she wore
I just went along for the ride
And I came back for more

I bought no tree this year
And I slept with your brother
I wrecked your Daddy's car
And went down on your Mother
I set your record collection on fire
And said I never knew
Felt kind of bad about that
And I know you did too

Then the two of them sing together the following:

So whatever you say
It's all fine by me
Who the fuck anyway wants a Christmas tree
Cause the snow keeps on fallin'
Even though we were bad
It'll cover the filth
We should both just be glad

The song works because for one, everything Cyndi Lauper touches turns to gold. She is like the Santa Claus of guest artists. Her gifts are endless and so is her generosity.

And The Hives are super fun and loud and snarky and Swedish. One of my favorite live shows of the past decade was seeing The Hives on their Tick, Tick, Boom album tour at the Fox Theater in Oakland.

Discovering “A Christmas Duel” so many years after it was recorded was a terrific Chanukah present for me. That’s the wonderful thing about music — the more you fall in love with it, the more love it has to share.

And the same goes for you, too, my readers!

Christmas is a couple days away and Hanukkah is nearing it’s 8th night (depending on when you read this), and with the new year coming, I wanted to wish you all a happy everything you like to celebrate and get ready for a 2023 filled with even more earworms and song loops!