HARK! – Page 2 – The Holiday Music Podcast

Episode 348: Edgy Pants

harkpodcast November 22, 2023 No Comments

Season’s Eatings! This very food-centric episode kicks off with a listener request. While he’s perhaps best known to Christmas nerds for his work in White Christmas, we totally ignore that while discussing Danny Kaye’s “Eat Eat Eat” and instead try to discern how light-hearted this holiday patter song actually is. We follow up this deceptively complex piece with a song so utterly devoid of deeper meaning that Carrie Underwood literally titled it “Stretchy Pants”.

The ranking music in this episode is “8 Days of Latkes” by Ben Schwartz.

Thank you to Myles for requesting “Eat Eat Eat”!

Episode 347: There’s Nothing Funny About Weezer

harkpodcast November 8, 2023 No Comments

Jam’s birthday is here again, and that means it’s BIRTHDAY BOI’S CHOICE TIME!! And this year, they’ve chosen chaos. Covering two Weezer songs (“The Christmas Song” and “The Deep and Dreamless Sleep”) might seem like a fairly conventional and orderly episode concept, but this thing got away from us pretty much as soon as it began. In the words of Nietzsche, “…when you gaze long into the [Weezer], the [Rivers Cuomo] gazes also into you.”

The ranking music in this episode is “I Want a Dog” by Weezer, and I have to tell you that it does unfortunately absolutely slap.

Episode 346: A Country-Twanged Clusterfuck

harkpodcast October 25, 2023 No Comments

Halloween approaches, and as is tradition, we’re covering two Christmas tunes with a Halloween-y kick! The first is “Hell of a Holiday” by the Pistol Annies, which offers a mish-mash of Halloween and (select) winter holiday flavors, as well as some intriguing questions about what spells their respective cleric domains would have. Then it’s “Flappie”, a dark Christmas tune beloved in the Netherlands, hauntingly performed in English by Todd Rundgren. Oath of Miranda Lambert paladins would not approve.

The intro music in this episode is the theme from “Goosebumps”, composed by Jack Lenz. The ranking music is “It’s Halloween (A Christmas Song)” by Randy Brooks.

Episode 345: Very Much Another Christmas Song

harkpodcast October 11, 2023 No Comments

Here in the brief window between August Got Run Over By a Reindeer and Halloween, we’re taking a minute to get to some listener requests! “Not Another Christmas Song” by Blink-182 is more or less what you’d expect, except maybe for the fact that it was released in 2019. In contrast, we weren’t sure what to expect from “Thank God It’s Not Christmas” by Sparks, but it still managed to surprise us.

The ranking music in this episode is “Nothing Better” by The dang Postal Service!

Thank you to Andy for these requests!

Episode 344: Jingle Horse 6: Jingle Horse with No Name

harkpodcast September 27, 2023 No Comments

World Animal Day approaches (probably), and we are celebrating (kind of) with two festive songs about animal companions! “Santa Claus Rides a Strawberry Roan” by Jim Lowe is unfortunately less about celebrating its titular animal companion and more about shit-talking reindeer. “Jingles the Christmas Cat” by Freddy Cole doesn’t give us much more in terms of lore, but dang, does it go down smooth.

The ranking music in this episode is, of course, “A Horse with No Name” by America.

Thank you to Myles for requesting “Santa Claus Rides a Strawberry Roan”!

Episode 343: An Inexplicably Good Time

harkpodcast September 13, 2023 No Comments

Since the High Holidays are just around the corner, we’re listening to two songs celebrating their winter-time relative, Hanukkah! By request, we hear “The Night of the Dreidel” by Craig Carothers, a song with an epic-sounding title that tells a smaller, sweeter story about a drama-free holiday. But don’t worry, “The Chanukah Song (We Are Lights)” performed by Jane Olivor has plenty of dramatic flair. Also: we got an email!

The ranking music in this episode is “Eight Candles (A Song for Hanukkah)” by Dave Koz.

Thank you to Jo for requesting “The Night of the Dreidel”!

Episode 342: Our Podcast Got Run Over By GGROBAR

harkpodcast August 30, 2023 1 Comment

It’s been a long month, and we’re closing it out by going back to the beginning. Randy Brooks’s own version of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” joins our list, as does his own parody of his own novelty hit, “Grandma Got Run Over by Corona”. The bar is low and he’s just gotta clear it to get us to the end of this freaking month!!

The ranking music in this, and all August Got Run Over By a Reindeer (AGROBAR) episodes, is “Everything Sucks” by Reel Big Fish, and you can’t take that away from us.

Episode 341: Our Podcast Got Run Over By Regional Accents

harkpodcast August 16, 2023 No Comments

It’s the second installment of our inexplicable self-inflected psychological experiment, August Got Run Over By a Reindeer! Our theme for these started out as “grandparents being run over by other, non-sleigh vehicles”, but we discovered a variety of common threads. “Grandpa Got Runned Over By a John Deere” by Cledus T. Judd and “Grandpa Got Run Over By a Beer Truck” by Da Yoopers both turn the tables on grandpa, and also, they’re both bad!

Our ranking music is… well, you’ll understand.

Episode 340: Our Podcast Got Run Over By Some Ska-Punk

harkpodcast August 2, 2023 No Comments

Well, it’s come to this. Welcome to our first installment of “August Got Run Over By a Reindeer”, a month-long “celebration” of the many, many mutations of Elmo and Patsy’s 1979 novelty hit, “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”. We ease our way in with two covers recorded by some familiar, nostalgic musical acts – Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish.

This week’s ranking music is “Everything Sucks” by Reel Big Fish!

Episode 339: Birthday Boy’s Big Band Christmas

harkpodcast July 19, 2023 No Comments

It’s Ian’s birthday (soon)! So he’s running the dang podcast!!! For his Birthday Boy’s Choice picks, he lands on two classic-adjacent tunes from years not yet covered on the show. “Happy Holidays” by Bing Crosby (with the Music Maid and Hal and John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra) seems like a commercial for hotels masquerading as a Christmas song, but it’s actually a stealth New Year’s song masquerading as musical theatre masquerading as a Christmas song. “Winter Weather” by Benny Goodman (with vocals by Peggy Lee and Art Lund) is a refreshing clarinet-heavy palate cleanser.

The ranking music in this episode is the medley from history’s greatest film, Muppet Family Christmas.