HARKpodcast

This week by request, we're looking at some old-school carols that are new to the list! "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman/We Three Kings" by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan brings us comfort and joy, while "Good King Wenceslaus" by The Roches comes to us bearing charm, wine, and life lessons. Thank you to lettinggoisthehardestpart and Thom for the requests!

What is the sound of snow falling? Is it like one hand clapping, or is it like, a person playing with a big pile of buttons? We investigate this and other ethereal mysteries as we review "Listen, the Snow is Falling" by Galaxie 500 and its predecessor "Listen, the Snow is Falling" by Yoko Ono. Thank you to Neil for the request!

This week it's all elves, all the time! By request, we cover two songs about elf OCs. "An Elf Named Moe" by Carl Stuck is an earnest ode to a North Pole middle-manager, while "Barry the Elf" by Bucko & Champs cheerfully tells the tale of a rude, lewd, and crude layabout. Thank you Rachele for the requests!

Spring is nearly here! Whether you're desperate for sunshine or already wistfully missing those snowflakes, the two songs we cover this week - "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes and "Strawberry Snow" by Brenda Lee - will hopefully have some comfort to offer you through this seasonal change.

We're celebrating St. Joseph's Day with two Italian Christmas songs! Well, Christmas songs in Italian, at least. Weeell... Christmas songs in Italian, or about Italy, or at least, sort of Italy-adjacent. We did our best. "Bianco Natale" by legendary Italian musician Mina transports us to the Italy of the 1960s, while "Buon Natale" by Nat King Cole transports us to, I dunno, some kind of weird fant...

This week, one of the calendar's most somber holidays befalls us again. No, not Ash Wednesday - we're talking about the return of Daylight Savings Time and the loss of that precious, precious hour. If you're like us and you need every second you can get, maybe you'll appreciate the short songs we chose for this week - "Holly Jolly Christmas" as performed by Michael Bublé is consistently Bublé, whi...

This week, we celebrate Mardi Gras en français with a pair of songs hailing from the province of Quebec. "Fa la la" by Bündock is strange but charming, while "Le temps d'une dinde" by Roland Hi! Ha! Tremblay is ... stranger and less charming? If you're from Quebec and/or a French speaker who would like to explain the context we're surely missing in this episode, please email us.

Valentine's Day is upon us once again, and this year we're tackling some holiday songs about love and romance that also turned out to be kind of spooky? By request, we listen to "Dear Santa (Bring me a Man this Christmas)" by The Weather Girls, which is weird but mostly charming. We pair it with "Christmas Eve" by Justin Bieber, which somehow manages to be even weirder, and also charmless. Thank y...

A polarizing holiday classic is finally making its way onto our list! By request(s), we take a long, hard look at "Last Christmas" by Wham! and wash it down with George Michael's "December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas)". Thank you to Patricia for the requests!

For Groundhog Day, we're celebrating the 90s way, with a little déjà vu! We cover requests from some of our repeat-requesters, digging into "Home Once a Year" by Marshall Burns and "Christmas C'mon" by Lindsey Stirling and Becky G. Thanks to Listener Jenny and Captain McGloo for these requests!

This week we listen to two more Christmas songs from the southern hemisphere - "Aussie Jingle Bells" by Bucko & Champs, which is exactly what you would expect, and "Santa Never Made It Into Darwin" by Bill & Boyd, which is maybe more of a bummer than you would expect. FYI, this one is Ian's fault.

It's our first requests of 2019 (submitted in 2018)! We cover two songs destined for the "mushy middle" of the list, but each one brings us some joy along the way. "Santa Says Relax" by Joe Innes and the Cavalcade is a post-ironic indie tune that makes us wish it was Christmas, while "Christmas in New Orleans" by Rickie Lee Jones is a sad, complex song that merits a second listen. Thanks to Jenny...

RJ and Ian are back from their international holiday travels, and they are SLEEPY. In this first episode of HARK recorded on this side of 2019, Ian explains the Julian calendar, RJ coins some new idioms, and we cover two new year songs - "Same Old Land Syne" by Dan Fogelberg and "New Year's Day" by U2. Yeah.

We have been informed that we do not cover enough songs from the 1980s, and for our first episode of 2019, we are taking decisive action. Unfortunately for 80s fans, that action does not involve covering songs from that decade. Instead, we're talking about two songs that remind us of the 1980s - "Christmas was Better in the Eighties" by The Futureheads and "Merry Something to You" by Devo. Matthew...

Hanukkah and Christmas are done and past for another year, and on this December the 26th we're celebrating Kwanzaa! We add two new Kwanzaa songs to the list: Teddy Pendergrass' smooth, catchy, and a little bit corny anthem "Happy Kwanzaa" and Lovely Hoffman's - well, lovely - "A Kwanzaa Song".

Our 200th episode is here, and RJ and Ian are once again trying to beat out the best and worst songs on the list! We begin by discussing the safe, reliable picks that we both settled on weeks ago - and then instead present the riskier choices that surprised us in the eleventh hour. Listen in to hear which unique tune by the smooth-voiced June Christy charmed us and what hellish nonsense by Ray Ste...

With Christmas less than two weeks away, we're trying something novel and only listening to extremely good music in this episode. These two songs - "Mary's Baby" by Charles Bradley and "Christmas is a Feeling In Your Heart" as performed by Love Colony featuring Six - may not be the greatest holiday songs of all time, but they are definitely honorable mentions.

As we hurtle inevitably towards the holiday season and the end of 2018, our usually-jolly co-hosts take an episode to cover some music that speaks to the melancholy that many experience at this time of year. "Reason to Think Aloud" by Dan Mangan is a slow burn of a song containing some poetic lines about loneliness and despair, while "Christmas Lights" by Paul Baribeau is a more frantic tune that...

Hanukkah starts at sundown on December 2nd, and we're celebrating with two Hanukkah songs perfect for any indie-folk-rock-heavy holiday playlist! "Hanukkah" by The Living Sisters offers pleasing harmonies about the festival of lights, though its message is a bit muddled - while "Rock of Ages" by Ben Kweller is a take on Ma'oz Tsur that manages to sound both hip and classic.

It's late November, which can only mean one thing - the avalanche week of late-capitalism-borne holidays following Thanksgiving are upon us. This week on HARK we're not celebrating Black Friday, Giving Sunday, or Dragon Tuesday - we're highlighting Cyber Monday (nominally, at least) with two songs sprung from the marriage of art and science. The wholesome-sounding "Love's Not Just For Christmas" i...

We cover more listener requests! Warm up your love-lights for the stirring Bing Crosby classic "I'll Be Home For Christmas", followed by Relient K's dirge of adolescent holiday heartache, "I Hate Christmas Parties". Thank you to Philip for these requests!

RJ's birthday is this week, and so it is time again for BIRTHDAY BOI'S CHOICE. Similar to Ian's 2018 birthday selections, RJ goes for two songs off of the same album - the best-selling holiday album of 1997, Hanson's Snowed In ! In Hanson's third appearance on HARK, we discuss two more tracks penned by the brothers themselves - "At Christmas" and "Christmas Time".

Who you gonna call? HARK PODCAST! We indulge in our annual Halloween tradition and listen to some winter holiday music with a spooooky twist. First up is "Christmas Spirit" by Tele Novella, a macabre pop ditty celebrating well-behaved monsters. Then "Buffy, It's Cold Outside" by Jenny Owen Youngs and Kristin Russo elevates a much-maligned classic tune by mashing it up with the campy homoeroticism...

This week on HARK we dive back in to our repeat-requester pile and take on a needlessly aggressive rendition of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" titled simply (sigh) "Santa's Coming" by CKY. We pair it up with another strange tune about a scary Santa, "Santa Came On a Nuclear Missile" by Heather Noel. Thanks to CJ for the request!

How many ways are there to sing that standard of Christmas standards, Jingle Bells? By request we cover two unique takes - "Jingle Bells" as performed by America's problematic beach uncle Jimmy Buffett, and the intriguingly punctuated "Jingle Bells?" performed by Barbra Streisand. Thank you to Andy for these requests!