Robert Earl Keen Merry Christmas From the Family Chords
| "Merry Christmas from the Family" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Song by Robert Earl Not bad | |
| from the album Gringo Honeymoon | |
| Released | 1994 |
| Recorded | 1994 |
| Genre | Holiday song, alternative land |
| Songwriter(due south) | Robert Earl Not bad |
'"Merry Christmas from the Family" is a holiday song written by alternative country creative person Robert Earl Keen. The vocal was outset recorded for Keen's 1994 album, Gringo Honeymoon. A live version also appears on his 1996, No. 2 Live Dinner. The popularity of the song led Keen to write a sequel vocal, "Happy Holidays Y'all", for his 1998 album Walking Distance, and to publish a book, Merry Christmas from the Family, in 2001. The original song, the volume, and the sequel all center around the same cast of characters in Keen'south humorous vision of a Texas style Christmas.
The song [edit]
Growing up in Houston, Texas, Robert Earl Keen didn't often meet snowfall at Christmas time. He says "I didn't even know what a anecdote looked like until I was 30 years old and saw information technology in a picture book… Information technology was a dissimilar kind of Christmas. Every Christmas song I had ever heard didn't accept a lot to do with growing upwards in Houston where information technology was most probable 85 degrees and 95 percent humidity."[1]
"Merry Christmas from the Family" describes the Christmas gathering of a adequately dysfunctional Texas family whose merrymaking—which includes drinking booze, carving a turkey, watching a televised ball game and smoking cigarettes—seems to exist punctuated with Christmas music and the need to run to convenience stores for boosted supplies such equally simulated snow and cigarettes. Various family members and events are described throughout the verses. No one is sure how to react to a younger sister bringing her Mexican swain to the party, only as soon equally he sings "Feliz Navidad" he is welcomed into the fold. Blood brother Ken arrives with five children from two of his previous marriages. Ken'due south new married woman, Kay, chain smokes and "talks all about AA." Extended family also appear. Fred and Rita—whose human relationship to the narrator appears to accept been forgotten—arrive from Harlingen in a motor dwelling, which when plugged in, overloads the electric system and knocks out the family's Christmas lights. The family unit and so waits on the front backyard and joins together in singing "Silent Night" when cousin David flips the billow that brings the lights back on.
The "Linen Rule" [edit]
Groovy calls the song the "Rocky Horror Picture Show of Christmas songs" maxim that whether singing before a grouping of 1,000 or 6,000 the unabridged audience sings along. And in particular shouts out the line, "Mix Bloody Marys 'cause we all want one."[1]
Due to the immense popularity of the song among Robert Earl Keen's fans, every bit well every bit its seasonal nature, he had to create restrictions limiting the time of year during which his band will play the song:
"Well, information technology's a existent pop song with us, I have ix records out and this vocal just sort of cropped up and became a existent favorite and we get requests for it all year round. So, I had to create this rule, I telephone call information technology the 'Linen Rule', where we don't play the song as long as y'all can wear linen. So it saves it and makes it fresh for the holiday season. Then we get-go playing it around Labor Day and we play it on through the holidays. Information technology'due south the big number especially in December that we shut with." –Robert Earl Keen[1]
Covers [edit]
Encompass versions of the song take been performed past creative person such every bit Jill Sobule, Rosie O'Donnell with the Dixie Chicks, and Montgomery Gentry.[two] Montgomery Gentry'due south version too charted at #38 on Hot Country Songs in 2001.
Sequel [edit]
Slap-up's 1998 anthology, Walking Distance included a sequel, "Happy Holidays Y'all". Groovy states, "I vowed when I really started writing songs that I'd never write a sequel. But I idea, well, y'all know, why not."[1]
According to Cracking the 2nd song fills in some of the gaps on the characters and brings them a little farther forth into their holiday commemoration: "The song 'Merry Christmas from the Family unit' is gear up in the present tense. This song is set in the present tense, but niggling further in the future—say similar after the party when everybody's packing up and leaving on the 26th of December."[ane]
References [edit]
- ^ a b c d e "Vacation Coping" by Neal Conan from NPR's Talk of the Nation December xviii, 2002 (Keen'south in-studio performance/interview starts at about 32:30).
- ^ listing of recordings from Allmusic [ dead link ]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_Christmas_from_the_Family
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