Why are there no Thanksgiving bangers?

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

There are a lot of hills I’d die on: hot dogs aren’t a sandwich, litterbugs should spend the weekend in jail, those who don’t use turn signals are the actual devil and Christmas music shall not be played until after Thanksgiving. Period.

I’m not alone in feeling like Christmas music is pumped out earlier and earlier every year. I even heard one store playing it before Halloween. This is actual insanity. 

Other than rampant consumerism, perhaps the reason Christmas music bleeds onto more and more pages of the calendar is because there just aren’t any Thanksgiving bangers. 

Also lacking in films, there are very few Thanksgiving-themed songs; and, since we Americans can never be more than an arm’s length from an election or a commercial holiday, transitioning from “Monster Mash” right into “Little Drummer Boy” tracks somehow.

There are Thanksgiving songs, though. Who could forget Adam Sandler’s 1992 turd “Thanksgiving Song” with his falsetto lyrics: “Turkey for me, turkey for you / Let’s eat turkey in a big brown shoe”? Still, it’s better than “Gobble Gobble,” by Matthew West, a Thanksgiving song released on a Christmas album for some reason. Behold his astounding lyrical prowess: “Gobble gobble one, gobble gobble two / Gobble gobble me, gobble gobble, you.” Go gobble yourself, Matthew.

Artwork by Terry Owens.

Or there’s “Stretchy Pants,” by Carrie Underwood, a twangy assault that sounds like the worst combination of ’80s rap and ’90s country one could imagine. To wit: “I got my stretchy pants on (stretchy pants) / Spandex and Lycra, you better work it for me / ’Cause I’m about to expand this band of elasticity.” Yikes.

“Be Thankful For What You’ve Got,” by William DeVaughn is a funk masterpiece that doesn’t really have anything to do with Thanksgiving, but it has the word, “Thankful” in the title, so… yeah.

Johnny Cash sang “Thanksgiving Prayer,” and Mary Chapin Carpenter released one called “Thanksgiving Song,” but they both seem like songs invented to fill a niche. Both are entirely forgettable.

There is the metal banger called “Home Sweet Home,” by Mötley Crüe, which has a quarter of a billion listens on Spotify. It’s actually a sweet song, with hopeful lyrics that speak to what it feels like coming home after a long time gone: “You know I’m a dreamer / But my heart’s of gold / I had to run away high / So I wouldn’t come home low.”

Alanis Morissette’s “Thank U” is another one on this theme. While not a “Thanksgiving song,” it’s got her classic angsty ’90s lyrics powering the way: “How ’bout me not blaming you for everything? / How ’bout me enjoying the moment for once? / How ’bout how good it feels to finally forgive you? / How ’bout grieving it all one at a time?”

For how central a memory Thanksgiving is in many Americans’ brains, there is a definite void in popular culture for movies and songs about the holiday. Maybe this is because Christmas is the big brother overshadowing all the other siblings. Perhaps being thankful doesn’t make for great art. Or maybe the all-powerful consumer-generating mechanisms of American holidays haven’t tapped into the money-making potential of Thanksgiving-themed songs, movies, shirts, tennis shoes and belt buckles.

Come to think of it, I’m glad there aren’t any Thanksgiving bangers. Maybe this holiday should remain what it is; a chance to listen to your slightly racist uncle spouting his viewpoints at the dinner table; football playing too loud from the other room as chaos erupts in the kitchen; dry turkey becoming dry turkey sandwiches for a solid week; and consuming enough butter, sugar and meat in one sitting to kill an entire pack of wolverines.

Personally, my favorite musical Thanksgiving tradition is how radio stations around the country play Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 “Alice’s Restaurant.” All 18 minutes of it. 

This wide-sweeping tune about littering, Vietnam and, you guessed it, Alice, is the one tune in this list that can truly be called a “Thanksgiving Song.” It involves a true story of Guthrie and a friend getting ticketed for littering after the dump was closed for the holiday, and ending up sharing a Thanksgiving dinner with Alice Brock, a restaurant owner, at the church where she lived. Some have called it a fun sing-a-long, others have dubbed it an anti-war song. I think it’s the true Thanksgiving Song, made even more poignant by the fact that Alice Brock passed away on Nov. 21 at 83 years old. 

May the spirit of her song live on and remain the only Thanksgiving banger we have to endure.