Thanksgiving Day songs
Thanksgiving. There are not all that many Thanksgiving Day themed songs. In grade school, our Music Teacher (pulled us in once a week to meet educational regulation, I suppose) had us sing some song or other that focused on the ritual of watching football. It was a hit of sorts, requested for singing from some of the boys as against the roster of — actually I wonder if the music teacher at old Arthur H Smith Elementary still has the kids singing “Dixie”?
For some reason,Thanksgiving becomes a day of football interjection. The Detroit Lions long ago cornered the market on a game to be aired on Thanksgiving Day. This worked out well for the league’s fans in the 1990s with Barry Sanders. Unfortunately, in the entire history of the Detroit Lions, Barry Sanders is the only thing the team has ever had going for them. Though, last year’s 0-16 run was pretty epic. It’s a day branded for bad football. The last time a Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day football game had any interest was a game that went into overtime, had a player shout out “Heads” for the coin flip, then had the con flip to “Heads”, at which point the referee announced that the player had shouted “Tails”, so lost the coin flip. The rules for the coin flip were changed going into the next season.
Were the “Dixie” song and that Thanksgiving Football song part of elementary school’s societal indoctrination?
Classic rock radio stations all through the country make a tradition of playing “Alice’s Restaurant” at noon. Why? I don’t really know. Protest the Vietnam War. I think they went ahead and updated the song for current wars.
So it’s left to this song to represent the meaning and historical thrust of Thanksgiving. Bombastic and horrible, it always gives me a chuckle where “Alice’s Restaurant” doesn’t.