11 Thanksgiving songs to make you forget Christmas carols
Like the other holidays, Thanksgiving is filled with traditions. Music? Not so much.
So why don’t we sing Thanksgiving carols?
Maybe because we're exhausted from all that cooking and eating and drinking and visiting and, yes, all that arguing.
Or maybe because there isn’t a cornucopia of Thanksgiving songs.
When we asked readers to name some for us, many mentioned three.
What came as a surprise -- beyond the fact that “Jingle Bells” was written as a Thanksgiving song -- is that Thanksgiving has many more tunes than you might think. Here are the top 12.
One is "The Thanksgiving Song" by Adam Sandler.
The song, which debuted on Saturday Night Live in 1992, includes lyrics about loving turkey and gravy and cranberries and mentions Sammy Davis Jr., corduroy pants, the Mets and masturbation. Rolling Stone called it a “holiday classic.”
Another song, which mentions exactly none of the above, is “Over the River and Through the Woods.” It originated from a poem written in 1844 titled "A Boy's Thanksgiving Day,” and includes the phrase “Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day," according to “Hymns and Carols of Christmas."
Modern versions of the song change the references to Christmas. One version recorded by Danny Kaye and the Andrew Sisters was renamed "A Merry Christmas at Grandmother's House (Over the River and Through the Woods)."
The third most popular turkey day song? The lengthy Arlo Guthrie song “Alice’s Restaurant.”
It stemmed from Guthrie’s arrest in a 1965 Thanksgiving trash dumping incident that ultimately kept him out of the Vietnam war and is traditionally played nationwide on public radio every year.
For those who can't stand that standard, our list includes these eight other songs.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.