3 Chords & the Truth: Have yourself a merry little Christmas

The older I get, the more the lyrics to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" speak to me -- get to me.

And, in a not-always-visible-from space manner, they guide your Mighty Favog in putting together A 3 Chords & the Truth Christmas each year. Don't make me count up how many Christmases that's been now.

Given all this country's recent travails, the line "Next year all our troubles will be out of sight" seems, to me, grossly overly optimistic. On the other hand, they could be. But still . . . you never know.

SO, AT THIS TIME of the year, one holds onto hope. It's a terrible thing to live without hope.

I won't belabor the point. It's time to listen to the music, and give in to the hope that "Next year all our troubles, will be out of sight." Merry Christmas from the Big Show.

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

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight

 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away

 

Once again, as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more

 

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

 

3 Chords & the Truth: Bleak midwinter

It's gray. It's raining. It's December, and Christmas is nigh.

The rain, in these parts, actually is something of a holiday treat. Drought, don't you know? The gray and the chill and the nights that begin in the afternoon, that's just midwinter in the upper Midwest.

This time of year, you have to make your own light. You have to add color to the world by whatever means necessary. In the case of 3 Chords & the Truth, that would be through playing the best music anywhere.

This week, like every week here in the studio, is no exception.

I've got the tunes; I've got my Community coffee shipped from South Louisiana, and that's all anybody needs to keep the gray -- and the December chill -- at bay.

IF I TRY hard enough, I can smell the big blue spruce tree of my childhood Christmastimes. That's not nothing -- these days, our household trees run toward the plastic and metal. "Trees" is not a typographical error. If one tree is good, two are better.

This year, a new wrinkle on the fake-tree front: fixing a loose branch with electrical tape and a bit of faux-fir camouflage. I don't recall ever fixing a real evergreen, so chalk up an advantage for artificiality.

Anyway, as we continue the run-up to the Big Show's big Christmas show next week, we have a mix of all the great music you normally hear, plus some holiday classics, plus some yuletide tunes that might not be so familiar to you. You'd expect no less from this program, right?

Ring those Christmas bells, then settle down in a comfortable chair with your favorite hot beverage for another full-fledged musical experience.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Sundown serenade

In my mind's eye, I've always seen 3 Chords & the Truth as something best listened to in the dead of night, in a room dimly lit by the dial of an old radio.

Just as good, I think, would be listening to the Big Show with your smartphone (or whatever) playing through a classic piece of audio gear, the room lit just by the glowing face of a 1960s or '70s stereo receiver. I am a hi-fi nerd, so I'm funny that way.

Still, I think that concept resonates with Baby Boomers like myself, who spent many a night listening to the radio in our rooms -- or attached to the earphone of a transistor radio hidden under the covers -- instead of sleeping like our parents demanded.

Who needs dream time when you have far-away voices and all your favorite music drifting through the sky and into your head?

THAT'S THE VISION in my aging mind's eye, the vision I've always had for 3 Chords & the Truth. Your mileage may vary. After all, it's your head, your room and your particular Internet appliance.

That said, we're winding our way toward Christmas here in the culture-war bunker in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, and the music just keeps on a-comin'. And, boy, is it good. If you happen to be celebrating Hanukkah instead, it's just as good as a plate of warm latkes.

I do love me some latkes, so that should tell you something about this week's program. The show, in my humble opinion, is even as good as a nice brisket.

Perhaps I was born the wrong religion, come to think of it.

Let's just say this week's musical selections are nice -- holiday nice.

So let's get on with the show, shall we?

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Don't fence me in

This is 3 Chords & the Truth. We don't do fences here.

There's not much to keep the easy listening out of rock 'n' roll's business. Nothing separating jazz from classical. Or country from the blues, punks from mods, the secular from the sacred.

On the Big Show, it's always a free-for-all. What you know you'll get next is not knowing what you'll hear next.

It's Christmastime now, so expect some musical surprises under the tree. And clichés embedded in program descriptions.

Hey, you come up with new, pithy things to say about 3 Chords & the Truth every week, why don't ya?

I've been under the weather. I'm tired of writing now. Listen to the show, OK? Peace out.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: What, me worry?

When I was a young'un, if there was stuff in the world that damn well needed a good dose of ridicule, MAD magazine was there to do what needed to be done.

And at 60 cents -- cheap -- we angsty adolescents well could afford a crucial element of our education.

This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth testifies to the impact MAD has had on me half a century later. And I regret MAD is no longer on the periodical stands in drugstores and supermarkets everywhere in a country so, so ripe for a good satirical roasting.

REALLY, it's gonna be good on the Big Show this week. I'd give it a listen if I were you.

Never, ever completely let go of the 12-year-old inside you. The kid will come through exactly when you need him. Or her.

And so will MAD, even though it's disappeared from drugstores and supermarkets. Now -- where you can find it -- it overwhelmingly consists of reprinted classic material. Pity. More than ever, this country is, as they say, a target-rich environment.

The best thing I can say about this here podcast, probably, is it's produced by a child of MAD. And that's pretty damn good.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Whatever

You’re in tune with 3 Chords & the Truth. Welcome to my stream of consciousness.

Most weeks, I have no idea where the Big Show is going when I start to pick the music. I’m just looking to mix it up and not play stuff that I’ve recently had on the program.

That’s about it.

This week. . . . This week is that on steroids. I had no effing idea.

I SCROLLED through stuff, and I picked something that caught my fancy. Then I picked something else that sounded good to me. Then something that I figured would go with what came before.

The stream of whatever got to be something else.

Again, welcome of stream-of-conscience programming on 3 Chords & the Truth. It is what it is, and you get what you get.

And I’m hoping it doesn’t suck. Maybe I’m the best judge of that; then again, maybe not.

Note the slick use of the semicolon there.

And that pulled pork in the Whole Foods dinner really was almost pureéd. Not bad tasting, just baby foodish. The collard greens and macaroni and cheese were surprisingly good for store food.

OK, the stream-of-conscious thing is getting out of hand here.

I think it’s time for me to stand down now. Just listen to the show and let me know. Wait, is the LED lightbulb in the studio fixin’ to go out? Blink, blink. blink. I hate that.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Don't be a monster

We're going to go places -- musical places -- during this edition of the Big Show. Not that that's surprising by now.

I am hopeful it will take us far, far away from the ugliness, strife and hatred enveloping everyday life in these Disunited States of America.

At a time when the worst of us is on full display, as it has been for a while now and keeps getting worse, it's all the more important to keep sight of the best of us. It's important to hear the best of us.

THAT'S what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about.

Yesterday, someone told me he could have sworn I was a Jew. It wasn't a compliment. Amid my visceral sickness at the exchange, I nevertheless took it as a backhanded one.

The past three weeks or so, we've been getting a master class in how the "friends of the oppressed" left can be just as awful as the MAGA right. And when you can't bring yourself to condemn terrorism, regardless of the perpetrator, you are demonstrably awful.

You are not the best this country or world has to offer, and that's a profound understatement.

Things here are ugly, and people ain't playin' anymore. I can't single-handedly stop that; I can remind people of the beauty surrounding us instead. Without that, we become inhuman.

Without that, we become monsters.

Don't be a monster. Do listen to the Big Show.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: It's not nothin'

World affairs have not improved in the last week. There was another spasm of mass murder via assault rifle in the United States. And MAGA Ned Flanders is the new speaker of the House.

It's still time to be desperately worried about . . . well, everything.

Good thing there's 3 Chords & the Truth to elevate the mood around here. Fine pieces of music, expertly crafted into an eclectic, yet coherent, whole can do that for you even in the darkest of times.

That's not nothin'. And that's the Big Show -- though I'm not sure "not nothin'" is the best slogan one could craft.

It's a good thing I'm not relying on myself to be the advertising guy. Oh, wait. . . .

Well, shit.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Can I even?

It's been a couple of weeks.

Last week, I couldn't even.

This week, I'll give it the ol' college try.

Welcome to 3 Chords & the Truth. Some weeks, I feel like I'm playing music in the darkness and hoping for the best. This week, I feel like I'm playing music in the darkness inside an insane asylum.

SUCH IS LIFE in the United States -- and inside a red state in the United States -- these days. And here I am doing a freeform radio show on the Internet. Congress is paralyzed, thanks to the Rabid Weasels Eating People's Faces Party . . . now engaged in eating one another's faces.

Normally, the sight of that would be highly gratifying. But we really could use a legislature right now, when Hamas terrorists are beheading Israeli babies, and the whole Middle East is a powder keg in the middle of a bonfire.

I can't even. But I'll try here on the Big Show.

For so many reasons, I can't even. For so many reasons, I have to try.

Shalom.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: That's freeform for ya

I have a new minimum standard for the Big Show.

All I need to do is not f*** this thing up as badly as House Republicans f*** up everything. That should be easy enough.

And what am I not f***ing up? Basically, playing what the hell I want. All I have to do is make sure that makes some sort of sense.

Again . . . way ahead of the House GOP.

Freeform in the 21st century. That's exactly what 3 Chords & the Truth is, and this week's program is about as freeform as it gets. Minus the Tuvan throat singing or Bulgarian folk songs.

This time.

The Big Show. It's a little of the 1960s in the 2020s. It's a little vintage big-city, freewheeling FM radio behind red-state lines.

What it is, is 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all.  Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Love and hate

It's a thin line between love and hate.

Or is it a chasm?

Perhaps it depends on the context. In America today -- or is it Amerika? -- there's a chasm. And hate is all around. Fascism is on the rise.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we take a musical look. The subject matter is harsh, but the music goes down easy.

I'm biased, but I recommend you give this edition of the Big Show a listen. The devil you try to ignore will kill you even faster than the one you acknowledge.

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