We are in the strange void between Hanukkah and Christmas, a time where Jews are already sick of being proud and silver-and-blue glitter and singing Maoz Tzur, while the rest of the western world is just about to kick their holiday into high gear.
I know it’s not fair to pit our minor (though fun) holiday against the birth of the central dude of the Christian religion. But I can’t really help it. Kyle Broslovsky was right: it is hard to be a Jew on Christmas.
Which doesn’t at all explain the song that Josh Lamar and I put together called “I Hate Christmas.” It’s actually about, uh, why I like Christmas.
You can listen to it free right there, or you can download the whole mini-EP for just $1. It’s so worth it…both because it’s good music, and because you can crank it loud enough to drown out all that Christmas music on the radio.
What’s interesting is the way this came about. Joshua Lamar, the non-Jewish drummer for the Jewish punk band Can!!Can, asked me if he could have some of my spoken-word tracks to play with. I sent him a volley of a bunch of them — a while Christmas sack full of presents, you could say — and the one he picked to work on first is the Christmas one.
So take a listen! And, by the way, there’s some raw language on it, just as a warning. I’m still kind of nervous about posting this — much more nervous than posting the Hanukkah songs that we commissioned a few weeks ago — but, then again, it’s a whole different ball game. After all, “Mi Yimalel” and “Maoz Tzur” were written by great people thousands of years ago. This is just me ranting about Bob Dylan and Bette Midler. What do you think?
