A musical battle between Hanukkah and Christmas is really no battle at all. As the popularity of recorded music grew through the twentieth century, so did the Christian-to-Jew population advantage. A 50:1 advantage in 1900 grew to a 150:1 advantage by 2000, and magnified by Western commercialization of Christmas, its celebrants produced an unparalleled abundance of popular holiday music. Hanukkah, in contrast, mostly made good with candles, dreidels, latkes and music that bore more resemblance to traditional Jewish melodies than the top of the pops. Sure, there’s the catchy “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,†but it’s more of a nursery rhyme than a hit single, and Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song†(covered by both Neil Diamond and the hardcore rockers Yidcore) was a heartfelt, but ultimately self-conscious response to the dearth of Hanukkah songs. Beck, They Might Be Giants and Ben Kweller, to name a few, have given it a shot, but don’t expect to be humming along to a Muzak™ version of Tom Lehrer’s “I’m Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica†any time soon.
Even with the LeeVees’ Hanukkah Rocks on the shelves, Hanukkah fights the musical battle with both arms tied behind its back. If Christmas is the Beatles, Hanukkah is at best a lounge band covering the Four Seasons (cf: The International Battle of the Century). The relentless repetition of Top 40 hits, on the radio and in stores, has made dozens of Christmas songs icons of the season. And in keeping with the secularization of Christmas as aU.S. celebration, many of the best-loved Christmas songs were written or sung by Jews. The Idelsohn Society’s two-disc set traces the transformation of Christmas from a religious holiday to a popular bonanza, and further emphasizes the second-banana position into which the relatively minor holiday of Hanukkah was pressed. The songs on disc two demonstrate how Christmas cut across cultural lines to become as much a secular seasonal feeling as a religious celebration. As the set’s liner notes point out, American Jews celebrated Christmas “not because it was Christian, but because it was American.â€
At the same time, the designation of Christmas as a national holiday in 1870 set off a desire among some Jews for Hanukkah parity. And though Hanukkah songs were written and revived, none ever reached true popular acclaim. Disc one, “Happy Hanukkah,†includes historical odes, folk songs (including Woody Guthrie’s “Hanukkah Danceâ€), traditional melodies, klezmer, cantorial standards, children’s songs, chorals and humor. The disc’s one hit is Don McLean’s “Dreidel,†which just missed the Top 20 in 1972, and is really only Hanukkah-themed in its title. Disc two is filled with popularly familiar artists (The Ramones, Bob Dylan, Benny Goodman, Sammy Davis Jr., Herb Alpert, Mel Torme), all of whom are Jewish. The song list features many perennials, including Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas,†which author Phillip Roth characterized as subversively turning “Christmas into a holiday about snow.â€
Country parodist Cledus T. Judd follows closely in the footsteps of Ray Stevens (to whom he recorded a tribute album, Boogity, Boogity), and earlier acts like Homer & Jethro and Sheb Wooley. To the MTV generation, weaned on video hits of the ‘80s and ‘90s, he’s more likely to appeal as the Al Yankovich of country music. Like all of these humorists, he’s a passable vocalist who treads a fine-line between clever and sophomoric as he lampoons the melodies of much-loved hit songs and pokes fun at Nashville stars. The parodies work best as singles, sandwiched between the real McCoys on radio, and will most please those familiar with the originals. Judd also writes original material that keeps his albums from becoming formulaic.
Returning from radio stints at WQYK, Tampa and WUBL, Atlanta, Judd’s parody excels when he bites into contemporary events. His rewrite of Brad Paisley’s “Waitin’ on a Woman†snapshots the societal disaster of W and the political ineptness of McCain, and he catalogs outsized hopes with “Waitin’ on Obama.†He translates Larry Cordle’s sharp “Murder on Music Row†into the even sharper “Merger on Music Row,†digging behind Nashville’s crossover trends to consider the shrinking landscape of the music industry. His originals are infectiously silly as he celebrates the Dukes of Hazzard’s “Cooter†(with killer harmonies to accent the very mention of “Cooterâ€) and gives one of Santa’s original eight his chance to escape Rudolph’s bright red shadow on “Dang It, I’m Vixen.â€