Foo Fighters SNL medley is the greatest rock Christmas song of all-time
I hate Christmas music. It's not a bah humbug the season sucks kind of thing; I just think most of it is inane and a waste of whatever medium it's on. Rock musicians should do what they do best and for almost all of them....no....for every single one of them, it isn't Christmas songs.
For every great John Lennon tune hoping you have a "Happy Xmas", there's his former partner, Paul McCartney, wishing you an insipid "Wonderful Christmas" time. It's physically painful to hear that tune. Oh man, that song is now stuck in my head...DAMN!
And then there's Rod Stewart, Kenny G., Michael F'ing Buble and OMG Neil Diamond and his five Christmas albums. FIVE!! Why Neil WHY?
Okay...okay...okay...we get it. You don't like Christmas music.
So it's last Saturday night. There's not much going on and I'm bored. I running through the tv listings and Saturday Night Live is coming up. I rarely watch SNL anymore but I see their musical guest is Foo Fighters. Cool! I love those guys. How can you not love Dave Grohl?
I'm kinda zoning on the show until it's time for their first song. They do "The Sky Is A Neighborhood" and it's pretty good. Dave is wearing a red and black lumberjack flannel shirt. Hmmm...I've been thinking about buying one for a couple of weeks. I knew Dave was cool.
The show is heading toward the conclusion. Alec Baldwin introduces the band for their second song. Grohl is out by himself wearing a Christmas sweater. Not as cool as the shirt but whatever. He's singing "Everlong" and it's good...very good. Hey look at this, it's a medley.
The rest of the band comes out and they're playing "Christmas, Baby Please Come Home." The band is rocking it with the backup singers trading off verses. It's awesome....almost as awesome as Darlene Love doing the song, which is one of my few Christmas favorites.
Then there's more.....Foo Fighters are breaking into "Linus and Lucy", you know...that cool Peanuts instrumental where the Peanuts kids dance around the piano. It's awesome, too! The guitars are wailing and the drums are pounding. By the end of the song, I'm on my feet, my fist in the air and I'm punching out the final beats with the band.
It was so great that I forgot I was listening to Christmas music.
There are maybe four Christmas songs that I like. In addition to the Lennon and Love songs, there's Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and Joni Mitchell's "The River", which really isn't a traditional Christmas song. What the Foo Fighters did on Saturday is at least the equal of any of those. That it's new and fresh also helps.
I've listened to the medley on YouTube ten times since Saturday and I haven't burned myself out on it yet. It's still great. I want Foo Fighters to come back to SNL every Christmas and do it just like Darlene Love did with Letterman. Make it a holiday tradition!
For me to ramble on about a Christmas song, it has to be great and this one was more than that. It really is the greatest Christmas rock song of all time.
Related Post: I hate Christmas music
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