Everyone knows that Thanksgiving is all about the sides, so we’re serving up some spicy cuts that are sure to heat up your holiday spread. (Also, this playlist is one thing you won’t have to fight over. But, let’s be real–it’s the holidaze.)
Let’s dive in and take a closer look at this merry feast of music.
We always encourage listeners to shuffle it up, but the order of this playlist is also quite delicious. Case-and-point, we start things off with the Talking Heads classic, “Don’t Worry About the Government”. The obvious joke here is the perils of political discourse at the Thanksgiving table, and well… let’s not worry about that for now. And then we roll right into “Grumpy Old Man” by Remi Wolf–haha.
The Original and The Cover
This playlist features Van Halen’s “Running with the Devil” and then the super-interesting cover by the twee duo The Bird and The Bee. If you are unfamiliar with The Bird and The Bee, they previously released an entire record devoted to Hall and Oats covers; when we found out they had released AN ENTIRE RECORD OF VAN HALEN COVERS we kind of had to check that out. Definitely worth a listen.
Not quite a cover, but we snuck in “One Beer” by MF Doom that starts off with a sardonic tribute to Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You” and then we segue into Frank Sinatra’s version to smooth things out.
The Original and The Sample
Near the end of Beastie Boys “Finger Lickin’ Good” the track comes to a grinding halt and samples Bob Dylan singing, “I’m going back to New York City, I do be-lieve I’ve haaad eeenough…” Interestingly they insert the sample about at the same time as it appears on the original Bob Dylan recording of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”. In our estimation, these are both killer recordings.
Wordplay
Late 90’s Japanese duo Cibo Matto croons the song “Spoon” meanwhile the band Spoon rocks “The Hardest Cut” from their latest effort, “Lucifer on the Sofa”.
Songs with food/eating in the title: “Cream” (Prince), “Grease” (The Grease Soundtrack), “Squib Cakes” (Tower of Power), “Salsa Con Coco” (Pochy Y Su CocoBand), “Hungry Like the Wolf” (Duran Duran).
Other notes
The vibe of this playlist is definitely a little cheeky, a bit brash, and full of energy. We imagined these Flexjams in the background while baking pumpkin pie, hanging out at Friendsgiving, and/or tuning out Auntie’s family gossip.
From all of us at the Flexcar family, here’s to gratitude. Oh man, did we forget to add “Gratitude” by the Beastie Boys? I guess there’s next year!
