Friday Nite Videos -- Nov 29, 2013 (Alt-Xmas Music, Part I)

Portside
Way Down in the Hole (Tom Waits). Preachin' Blues (Son House). Stand Up, Stand Up for Judas (Leon Rosselson). Atheists Don't Have No Songs (Steve Martin). I'm on My Way to Canaan Land (Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry).

Way Down in the Hole (Tom Waits)

Tom Waits performs all the somewhat sardonic verses of Down in the Hole, a song best known from the fragment that serves as the musical signature for the tv series The Wire. Find more Alt-Xmas music here.
 

Son House "Preachin' Blues"

Son House was a preacher before becoming a seminal figure in the development of blues. Here he creates short, vivid portraits of church-goers. Find more Alt-Xmas music here.

Strange Thanks

Robert Meeropol robertmeeropol.com
Although the great red scare of the 1950s almost erased the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit from the public arena, the strange fruit allusion - lynched bodies hanging from trees – was one of genius. It had gotten under our culture’s skin, and as time went on, it seeped out of its pores.