In the midst of my usual All That Is December Stressfest, I know it is important to make a little time to enjoy myself. My favorite thing to do to counteract the onslaught of Christmas store emails, blaring commercials with jingle bells, and paper cuts on my fingers from wrapping presents is not to chill out, but go OVER THE TOP into FULL-ON CHRISTMAS MEGA-MAX-OVER-SCHMALTZ with the holiday songs of Red Sovine. The late Mr. Sovine was, as his Wiki points out, a country music artist most known for his songs about truckers, but I think Red's finest moments came at Christmastime. No one, and I mean no one, perfected country lyrical pathos better than our Red, and when you pair his brand of redneck melodrama with Christmas sentimentality, you have a nuclear meltdown of HEART-TUGGING HILARITY. It's TOO MUCH.
It just astounds me that people take these songs seriously. They were clearly a boilerplate construction: sick/dying child, benevolent Santa/other adult, lonely suicidal Christmas Eve dude, drunks, abusers, trucks flying off icy highways...you get the drift. Red could write these in his sleep, and people just ate 'em up, crying into their grits at the Waffle House, probably. The closest modern update to the Sovine franchise of holiday despair was Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take The Wheel," but even that soap opera doesn't have the extreme, twisting lyrical payoffs that Red delivered with such drawling sincerity. You think one of his songs won't go there, and then it DOES, and then goes even FURTHER into Santa's Sad Sack...so much so that I laugh my ass off, which thereby relaxes me. Aaaahhhhh.
So today I will share with you the unintentional comic delight of A Red Sovine Christmas with three of my favorites from his bag of holiday weepers. Grab yourself a lukewarm lumpy hot cocoa, some curdled eggnog, or a bottle of the cheapest whiskey money can buy, and take a listen. Please to enjoy!
This is the one that started it all for me. I don't want to spoil it for you but Billy clearly has multiple issues here, his family are big jerks, and I feel Santa's reaction at the end with the kiddies is a touch cheery. Jeez, Santa!
Red Sovine, "Faith In Santa (Billy's Christmas Wish)"
Dead mom, crying preschoolers, and a lesson against speeding to Walmart on Christmas Eve, SHOPPING SLACKERS.
Red Sovine, "Is There Really A Santa Claus?"
There's something exquisitely creepy about this monologue from a drunken recent divorcee having a Christmas Eve meltdown, with spooky organ accompaniment.
Red Sovine, "Here It Is Christmas"
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman