Bob Dylan To Record A Christmas Album! EXCLUSIVE Cover Art And Track Listing!
As reported by Isis and Bully! Pulpit, Bob Dylan is currently working on a Christmas album and I am happy to announce starcasm.net has the first sneak peek at the cover art AND the track listing! From the looks of it, the release will be two CDs and feature 20 Christmerrific holidylan tunes!
(Click the cover image to zoom in!)
DISC ONE:
I Threw It All Away In A Manger
I Dreamed I Saw St. Nicholas
Sleigh Lady Sleigh
Ho-Ho-Ho-ing in the Wind
Joy To The World Gone Wrong
Not Christmas Yet (But It’s Gettin’ There)
Man In The Furry Red Coat
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Christmas Carroll
Ballad Of A Fat Man
Ho-Ho-Hozambique
DISC TWO:
Reindeer Landlord
Gift Not For You
On A Silent Night, Holy Night Like This
Yea! Cookie And A Bottle Of Milk
I Am A Lonesome Ho-Ho-Hobo
Silvio Bells
What Was It You Wanted?
Frosty The Snowman In Me
If You See Her, Say Ho-Ho-Ho
Deck The Walls Of Red Wing
How about that?!?! I can’t wait to dance around to “Ho-Ho-Hozambique,” but I’m a little frightened of the gloomy sounding “Not Christmas Yet.” After first glance, my favorite would have to be “Silvio Bells,” though “I Dreamed I Saw St. Nicholas” is impeccable!
BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS, Bully! Pulpit reports that the album will be a mixture of “Christmas carols and modern songs. At least four songs have reportedly been recorded for the album including, ‘Must Be Santa,’ ‘Here Comes Santa Claus,’ ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’ and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem.'”
My first reaction was a typical “Whuh? You’re kidding?!?” But, after thinking about it a few minutes, I realized it’s not all that weird at all. Christmas songs range from deeply spiritual and somber to fun and humorous, and that seems to be exactly what Dylan has been going for on his last three fantastic releases: “Love and Theft”, Modern Times and Together Through Life. Mixing songs like “O’ Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Here Comes Santa Claus” could have the same range of melody and meaning as “Sugar Baby” and “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” from Love and Theft, and Bob’s creaky-weary vocal styling will be a nice change of pace on songs we’ve all heard thousands of time. (Kind of similar to hearing Ernest Tubb sing “Blue Christmas.”)
There is no official release date, and Dylan is notorious for projects getting delayed or disappearing off the radar altogether, but I’ll remain optimistic – much like Paste Magazine who say, “No word yet on a release date, but we have a sneaking suspicion it could come out sometime between November 26 and December 25 of this year. Call it a hunch.”
In Bob’s words, “I Can’t Wait!”
I encourage everyone to come up with some Dylan Christmas songs! Some that didn’t quite make the cut on my list were:
Tangled Up In Blue Christmas
Christmas Time Out Of Mind
All The Tired Reindeer
Hard Times In Little Town Of Bethlehem
And more from the much overused “Ho-Ho-Ho” genre:
Ho-Ho-Ho And Behold!
Ho-Ho-Ho, Sister
Visions Of Jo-ho-ho-hanna
UPDATE – Check out this hilarious post with Dylan Christmas lyrics and more suggested song titles! Actually, it seems they beat starcasm to the punch on a track listing! (Mmmmmmmm…fellow Dylanites. Hey – do any of you think Street Legal is as awesome as I do?)
UPDATE 2 – Correspondent Kent Jones tackled the notion of a Bob Dylan Christmas album on the Rachel Maddow show:
Meh. Rachel should have got in touch with some of the clever folks commenting on this post and others all over the web! That stuff is much much funnier. “Bob the Tank Engine?” That’s the best you could come up with? Email me Rachel, I’ll hook you up!
