Happy Hanukah, Ivanuka


For my I Hate Hanukah post this year, I decided to just throw in the towel and piss people off by saying Happy Holidays, which apparently is quite an offensive thing to say.
As substitute host on KNON’s Jewish Music Hour, I’ll be hosting my second annual Totally Inappropriate Jewish Music Hour Christmas Show with Horrible Hanukah Music to Get Everyone Out of the Holiday Spirit.
There actually is more Hanukah music than that insipid dreidl song. A dreidl is a four-sided top that children spin and place bets on which side will land face up. Might as well just use dice.
So to help you have a bare naked Chanukah, here are the Bare Naked Ladies (best known for singing the theme song of Big Bang Theory) singing “Hanukah O Chanukkah.” Why did they choose this song to include on their holiday album? Because two of the three bare naked ladies are bare naked Jewish.

And the Indigo Girls singing “Happy Joyous Hanukah.” The song was written by Woodie Guthrie. Makes sense. All the Jewish songwriters were busy writing much more profitable Christmas music, so that left the Chanukah genre wide open. But Guthrie, who wasn’t Jewish, did have a Jewish connection. His wife was Jewish and so is his son, Arlo.

And for those who can’t celebrate Chanukah without that stupid dreidl song, here’s the best version ever recorded. The South Park version subtitled “Jews play stupid games …”