Christmas Song #5

SONG #5:



Tom Waits--Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

OK, so this only slightly qualifies as a Christmas song. I mean, if you just listen to the song without any knowledge of the song title, you wouldn't assume it's a holiday song (I mean, it mentions Valentine's Day in the last lyric of the song, but... um, wrong holiday.) But, it includes Christmas in the title... as well as Minneapolis. And it's about a hooker. So obviously it has to be included.

I guess it sort of ties in to the holiday, since the hooker in question is doing the whole "recap the year's events" that you get from families around this time of year. But it's pretty much your classic Tom Waits song (I actually think it might be one of his more popular songs from this time), weaving a tale about a peculiar character over a simple piano backing. This includes the clever twist that the entire thing was a ploy to get some money from the recipient to pay off her lawyer after getting thrown in jail.

Again, not *really* most evocative of the holidays, but you know... who cares. And actually, in reading around the internet about favorite holiday songs, least favorite and the what not, a decent amount of people listed this song as the only song that they can listen to in order to make it through the season (and by decent amount of people, I mean probably two... but I at least remember them mentioning it). Which is probably because the radio plays a lot of crap (or, to be more accurate since no one willingly listens to the radio nowadays, stores play the crappy holiday songs as everyone goes out shopping), and Tom Waits could record pretty much anything, slap a holiday title on it, and it'd be a welcome reprieve. So there's definite value in helping the less cheerful to make it through December.

BONUS SONG:



Also, Tom Waits could record any sort of old hymn, and it'd be great. I mean, you might not think it's great if you don't like his voice. But then you'd be wrong.

I might prefer this over the other song posted here.