Tundra tunes and yuletide yarns: Six Minnesota holiday songs
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Minnesota has contributed a great deal of holiday music to the canon, from Prince playing “Another Lonely Christmas” as a b-side to “I Would Die 4 U” to The Replacements seemingly chugging adult beverages by the Christmas tree in “Beer for Breakfast.”
For this list, I’m narrowing our selections down to holiday songs that either explicitly draw inspiration from Minnesota, or at least seem to capture a peculiar frosty mood of Midwestern melancholy or the tundra daffiness that seems to be our preferred seasonal moods.
‘Merry Christmas Polka,’ The Andrews Sisters, 1950
True to their Minnesota roots, where Lawrence Welk studied accordion at the MacPhail School of Music and New Ulm was once declared the polka capital of the nation, the Andrews Sisters couldn’t resist a good oompa oompa. They sang polkas to Pennsylvania, beer barrels, and exotic dancers, and, in this 1950 composition with Guy Lombardo, Christmas.
The song is typically upbeat and features the sisters’ signature bright, tight, jazzy harmony. Backed by jingle bells and swirling brass, the song is suitably seasonal, and the Andrews offer terrific holiday advice: “There’s wine to warm the middles now!” they sing. “Roll out the barrels that cheer you!”
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If you like this one, I would also suggest a real polka, “Holiday Polka,” by New Ulm’s own Whoopie John.
‘Christmas Time Is Here,’ Vince Guaraldi Trio, 1965
Some will argue that Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts” comics are set no place specific, and others argue that they must be set in St. Paul, Schulz’s childhood home. This is understandable, as, after about 6 p.m., there are more statues of Snoopy in St. Paul than humans.
I argue that they were set in Elliot Park in Minneapolis, where Schulz was born, and the only evidence I have is a single 1957 strip in which Lucy Van Pelt wins an “Outstanding Fussbudget of Hennepin County” award.
So whether you accept this composition as Minnesotan or not is up to you.
It is one of the most famous pieces by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, written for the 1965 television special “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” a strangely wistful song filled with high children’s voices that sound like they must be singing in a minor key (they aren’t; the song is written in F major).
It’s the perfect song for a snow-covered holiday night when you are filled with a poignant yet pleasurable melancholy.
‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis,’ Tom Waits, 1978
Raspy-voiced troubadour Tom Waits occasionally set songs in Minneapolis, enough to cause a popular legend that he lived here for a while (he didn’t).
Perhaps his most soulful is 1978’s “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis,” sung from the point of view of the eponymous sex worker.
The song starts ridiculously, with Waits belting out “Charlie I’m pregnant” in a voice closer to a carnival barker than the downbeat main character of the story.
But once you settle in, the song, with its mix of barroom piano, George Duke’s electric grand piano and its lyrical mix of broken and fabricated dreams, packs an undeniable holiday wallop.
‘Snow Days,’ Trip Shakespeare, 1990
Written and sung with a sort of stately R&B sensibility by Matt Wilson, this song off the album “Across the Universe” offers lyrics that are about as Minnesotan as it gets.
“Snow Days” tells of watching the skies fill with snow that covers the ground, promising a day without school.
“Mrs. Braintree, you’re a chilly northern woman,” Wilson sings of a Minnesota teacher sitting in her car, spinning her wheels.
“Go home from yonder bus stop / Because there’s a blessing on the ground!”
‘A Long, Cold Night in Minneapolis,’ Dead Man Winter, 2011
Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles offers this chilly blast of Americana, including soaring fiddles and mournful lap steel, as he sings of an especially bleak winter breakup.
“I’m hollow and holy,” he wails, but he also captures the haunting serenity of even the saddest of Minnesota winters: “It’s a beautiful morning with silver line thunder / And the hollowing winds of the winter appear.”
‘Let’s Ditch Christmas,’ Jeremy Messersmith, 2014
Troubador Messersmith starts this song in classic crooner mode, singing of such iconic wintery items as cold nights and time spent with family — and then immediately offers the most Minnesotan suggestion of all, that we flee the state for warmer climes.
“Who needs snow and mistletoe / When you’ve got the beach?” he demands, and an army of Minnesota snowbirds agrees with him.
