Monday, December 19, 2022

Feast With The Beasts (2): No crocodiles, or rhinoceroseses


Part 2 of a themed series of posts on Christmas songs with animals, about animals and maybe even by animals (nah). In blogpost #1 I explained the relation between Christmas and les animeaux (in the sky, in a manger, on your plate), and I posted mostly songs about dogs.
It was also about Christmas gifts, because a puppy for Christmas, isn't that just the cutest present? (This is not a real question, by the way).

Disclaimer: When researching this, I bumped into a lot of Children's Christmas songs (because a puppy for Christmas, or any given animal, isnt' that just the cuuuutest present?), and comedy numbers. Or 'comedy', as I quickly noticed. Maybe I have another sense of humour. I tried to steer clear from too much kiddie and komedy kristmas, but a few slipped through (come on, that PUSA track is funny! A piglet! In the snow! Ahahaha!). And NO chipmunks here either (well...).

And yep, Gayla Peevey is here. I know there are Christmas music enthusiasts that just can't stand this song, but with a theme like this, it just needs to be here:
I also listenend to about 30 cover versions. My take: this song cannot be covered, not even by Kacy Musgraves. It's either too annoying, or not annoying enough.

I also found a song called 'I DON"T want a Hippopotamus for Christmas', but that is just not good enough. The only reasonably funny comeback to Gayla is this one by superheroes The Aquabats:
You may know this from sexy Kay Martin, but this is about elephants (and sung by Goofy in a Disney special):
Children's Christmas song, but fun (and referencing to Gayla)
From hippo's and elephants it's just a small step to dinosaurs, no? Ooh, that cry:
Another dinosaur-song, from this year, quite mainstream and probably too childish, but fits the theme:
I can't make out the lyrics, so for all I know these punks sing about breadbaskets, but it's loud, and presumably about a monkey:
Comedy-ish track by a radio-dj, back in the 80s. He wrote a book about it:
PUSA have a little ditty on a piglet in the snow:
Does PUSA qualify as punk? Punk-ish? Is Nerf Herder a punkband? They made this X-rated Xmas classic. Parry Gripp from Nerf Herder wrote a lot of songs about animals and food, mostly for children, but this can charm adults too:
Cats and Christmas; I heard a lot of songs about feline friends and Xmas, but very few good ones. Maybe Martin/Stubby can prove me wrong in the comments. This is (for cat owners) very recognisable:
Same vein, cats behaving badly:
Straight from the psych 60s, this Donovan/early Pink Floyd-ish song:
This track qualifies as a must when it comes to cats and Christmas music. Basically it's (spoiler!) the Little Match Girl fairytale re-told with a cat and a mouse. It's overtly sentimental, not unlike weepie The Christmas Shoes. But it's a success:
Far from sentimental: this is Björk, in Icelandic, singing about a mythical cat who eats badly dressed kids at Christmas time:
Pet rabbits, you can use them for your Christmas story. Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek made a lowlands classic out it (HERE). That got covered by none other than Todd Rundgren (HERE). But Kris Kringel wrote the best Flappie song in Dutch. The pet ends in the pizza:
A wasp. Around Christmas time. In fact, this 'last wasp of the year' will stay until after Christmas. I don't know if you need to be German to think of this, but I'm sure it helps:
Check out the video for this too.
We all know the legend of Ceasar the Christmas Shark, don't we? The beast who ate all the reindeer in 1993? No? Listen:
And how'bout this one? A whole zoo, set free on Christmas!
Lovely weird Christmas song. Sears cards and animals:
From the 60s, and discovered by me recently:
Let's close this episode with Sufjan again, and a classic, 'cuz nothing says Christmas so much as a unicorn:
Did I miss a good one? Please comment!
Next up: reindeer. Spotify playlist HERE

2 comments:

KaBluie said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiopo96dEvI

KaBluie said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhPgIOcDl6k