By Madison Kitch
We’ve sung the soundtrack to “Hocus Pocus” and belted out Mariah’s iconic “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” That’s great, but it also shows the explicit erasure of one holiday: Thanksgiving. Christmas and Halloween get plenty of hype, but Thanksgiving gets no juice. Thanksgiving doesn’t have a musical soundtrack necessary to properly celebrate the season, and that’s not cool. Sure, we don’t receive candy from strangers or gifts from family members on Thanksgiving, but the story of the pilgrims making peace with Native Americans (minus the smallpox and mass slaughter) still deserves at least some clout.
There’s not a single (good) song about Thanksgiving, but a mere Google search of “christmas songs” brings up pages upon pages of absolute seasonal bops. “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” (1964), “Drummer Boy” (1955), and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1949) are Christmas classics whether you hear them on the radio three months early or sing them with family. The same cannot be said for Thanksgiving. There’s so many topics to sing about when it comes to Thanksgiving, but there’s not one good song about fighting over the turkey leg, eating till you pass out, Black Friday or even football. I just want to ‘tis this turkey season, you know what I mean?
A search for “thanksgiving songs” was very disappointing. Exactly nine songs popped up. Three were “The Thanksgiving Filter” (2011) by The Drive-By Truckers, “It’s Thanksgiving” (2011) by Nicole Westbrook and “The Thanksgiving Song” (2014) by Adam Sandler. I listened to them. Whether it’s Adam Sandler’s classic, ironic song-writing or an auto-tuned mess from Nicole Westbrook, there’s no such thing as a good, memorable Thanksgiving song. Sorry, Sandler.
All of the aforementioned Christmas songs came out between 1949 and 1964. Those songs were released over 50 years ago while all the Thanksgiving songs came out less than ten years ago. Christmas songs have aged well, so with any luck and lots of time these Thanksgiving songs will, too. I mean, clearly, Adam Sandler is a musical genius with lyrics like “Turkey for me/Turkey for you/Let’s eat the turkey/In my big brown shoe.” Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the possibility that these songs will age half as well as Paul Rudd. It’s unlikely though.
In all seriousness, there is a serious lack of Thanksgiving songs. Thanksgiving is just as important as Halloween and Christmas, yet Google can only find nine. That’s ridiculous. Children learn about the importance of Thanksgiving (a censored version without the mass slaughter) in elementary school, but that’s it. Thanksgiving deserves the same annoying treatment that Halloween and Christmas get. No matter how much I hate how Target starts advertising for Halloween in early September, the same rules must apply to Thanksgiving.
Rihanna, Beyoncé, please- give us a Thanksgiving bop this holiday season. I just want to sing about turkeys before I eat them. Is that too much to ask?
