Bob and Doug McKenzie “The Great White North” 1981. I’m spinning this record (which I’ve had since was 10 years old) primarily for their rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” which is the best cover of the classic Christmas carol ever (the standard is not a favorite). The song came up in the class I taught today (12 Days of Christmas-yoga styled) and I was shocked that almost no one had heard of it so I’m here to start remedying that! The record itself is a soundtrack of sort – a comedy album based on the characters played by actors Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas from their bit on the comedy show SCTV. It won the Juno Award for Comedy Album of the Year in 1982 and was nominated for a grammy (best comedy album) but lost to Richard Pryor.

I was obsessed in 1981 with this record – though I don’t remember actually ever watching the show except while visiting Toronto sometime around ’81. Listening to it now, it’s pretty dumb except for 12 Days, their theme song “Take Off” which features Rush’s Geddy Lee on vocals (listening to it now I have no idea why I liked it so much 40 plus years ago; also fun fact: Geddy Lee and Rick Moranis went to elementary school together) and I appreciate how Bob and Doug taught me metric measurement conversion (double it and add 30). Anyway, “Twelve Days of Christmas” devolves pretty much immediately (and they only get to 8 days because the song is so fucking long) and modify the presents most excellently. “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me: a beer! in a tree.” The rest of the days (until they call it quits) are two turtlenecks, three French toasts, four pounds of back bacon, five golden toques, six packs of two four, seven packs of smokes and eight comic books. I had to look up what “six packs of two four” is — it’s a 24 pack of beer. Of course. Merry Christmas you hosers.