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:: Richard Gillis - C.B. Santa Claus ::

Well, you knew there'd have to be a trucker Christmas song, right? This probably isn't the only one, but it's the only one I've found so far. This little number takes the heroic everyman nature of the trucker introduced to us in Red Sovine's "Teddy Bear," and combines it with the classic premise of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. See, evidently Donner bowed a tendon (Wouldn't he have to be put down? Aw. I'd hate to be a dead reindeer named Donner. Think what could happen!) and Rudolph had the flu. So Santa beseeched the truckin' brotherhood to help him make his deliveries, and they responded as quickly as if, oh, say a little crippled boy had wanted some rides because his daddy can't take him on any, since he's dead. On this special day, the truckers and their rival smokey bears set aside their differences to work together in perfect harmony, and everyone got their toys. Yay.

Who the fuck is Richard Gillis, you may ask. Well, he may have teamed up with Jerry Goldsmith to do the music for the Peckinpah film "The Ballad of Cable Hogue," a good film as long as you don't expect the usual festival of gunshot wounds that made ol' Sam famous. He might very well be responsible for the song "Butterfly Mornings," which made me burst out laughing when I heard it in the movie as a duet between Jason Robards and Stella Stevens. Someone named Richard Gillis did those things. This here song was produced by Joe Saraceno, who definitely worked with The Ventures and Marketts. It starts out pretty smooth, but by the end it sounds like Richard was just stuffing in words every which way to make 'em fit. Kind of like this article. En...joy?


Tony

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 at 6:17 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.