3 Chords & the Truth: Merry C-c-c-christmas!

The ground is white
The chill is up
We've got some ice
Fell on my duff

Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime

Big Show's still on
The music's here
That only comes
This time of year

Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime

A stack of records do their thing
Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding
B-brrr brrr brrr brrr brrrrrrrrrr
C . . . c . . . c . . . c . . . c . . . cold
Sh-shiv-shiv-shiv-shiv-er

SIMPLY having a frostbitten Christmastime
We're simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime

The wool hat's out
Inside the house
Layers won't let
My arms go down

Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime

But the stack of records do their thing
I've been waiting all year long
Ding dong, doo wop
Ding dong, doo wop
Ding dong, doo wop
Ding dong, doo wop

The ground is white
The chill is up
We've got some ice
Fell on my duff

We're simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime
Simply having a frostbitten Christmastime

Ho-ho, ho-ho
Ho-ho-ho wonderful Christmastime

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. The extra-large, family-size Christmas edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Alo-ho-ho-ho-ha.

3 Chords & the Truth: It's zaptastic

'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the BZZZZZZZZAP!

Note to self: The headphones do not connect to the electrical outlet. They plug into the mixing console. 

No, not the mixer in the kitchen, the thing in the studio with the knobs and faders.

I'll bet the above has cleared up a lot of things for you about 3 Chords & the Truth. Unsurprisingly, they're not much clearer for me. But I'll keep on . . . BZZZZZZZZAP! . . . trying.

I DON'T really know where I'm going with this. All I know is it's the week before Christmas, and there's so much to do and so little sleep. I also know there's another fresh episode of the Big Show this week -- right here, in fact -- and it's a real gas.

Because I don't trust myself with the electric.

What? No, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, either. Perhaps listening to the show will clear things up. Perhaps not.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Alo-ho-ho-ho-ha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Rock on, man

What?

Hairy fist mush? What the hell is fist mush?

Hang on.

OK,  I turned down my almost brand-new, 48-year-old bitchin' studio headphones. What's this about fist mush?

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. Merry CHRISTMAS! I thought the wall of sound had turned my brain to mush there for a second.

I see that look on your face. Don't say it, or it's no 3 Chords & the Truth for you. And you do not want to miss this edition of the Big Show.

Yes, it's that good.

Now, if you don't mind, I shall resume rockin' out. Man. Just listen to the show and don't try to talk to me when I have these things on.

Go. Get. Listen.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Tempus fugits at Christmastime

It's Christmas season once again, and another year that has slipped through our grasping fingers.

Because it's the holidays, we do the festive thing. Because it's another year that has passed by, leaving us -- yet again -- wondering where time has gone while our attention was elsewhere, we also think of all that was, yet is no more.

On 3 Chords & the Truth this week, we're doing a bit of the ho-ho-holidays. Behind the musical scenes, I'm wondering how six-plus decades could pass so quickly. So much I thought would be forever when I was young isn't anymore.

TAKE THE Dalton Theater in North Baton Rouge. It was a little neighborhood movie house we'd always drive by whenever we went to see my Uncle August. A middling landmark of my Louisiana youth, it was, standing there at Dalton Street and North Acadian Thruway.

First it closed sometime in the1970s, then it decayed. Then the city condemned it. Then, in 2000, the city tore it down. The progression of Uncle August -- who died, age 65, of cancer in 1982 -- was not dissimilar.

I think of that stuff at Christmastime. My parents' generation of the family is all gone. So are a lot of the things and places I grew up with. We shall not go there this week on the Big Show. I suspect you, if you're of a certain age, don't need my help in that regard this time of year.

It's there, lurking, in the corners of our minds. It stares back at you in the bathroom mirror every morning. C'est la vie.

Street View, Google Maps

No, this week, 3 Chords & the Truth, as always, is about the music -- pop, rock, big band, jazz, soul, standards, easy listening, country and all the rest. It's all mashed up in the food-for-the-soul processor of the mind and spit back out onto the Internet in sets that make musical sense. Well, I think they make musical sense; such is freeform radio, even when it's in cyberspace.

If my thoughts turn melancholy when the bitter wind sweeps across the Plains and the mercury digs a hole for itself, the Big Show does what it always does. It entertains and, one hopes, enlightens a bit. That doesn't change, even though everything else does.

Even though everybody else does . . . and you, too.

That's where we are as Christmas 2022 draws nigh after two previous, warped COVID Christmases removed so many things -- and people -- from the here and now and tossed them unceremoniously into the once was.

There's so much that, in Louisiana-speak, ain't dere no more. But the thing is this; the music always will be. Dance while you can, because the tempus is fugiting, and its run at the Dalton has been extended indefinitely.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.