"When I was a kid, this time of year always made me feel a little left out,” Adam Sandler explained before performing "The Chanukah Song" on Saturday Night Live in 1994. “Because in school there were so many Christmas songs, and all us Jewish kids had was 'Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.' So I wrote a brand-new Hanukkah song for you Jewish kids to sing, and I hope you like it.”
For those unfamiliar with “The Chanukah Song,” it’s a goofy, tongue-in-cheek but oddly endearing novelty song in which Sandler points out all the famous people who are Jewish. It includes lines like: "You don’t need 'Deck the Halls' or 'Jingle Bell Rock'/Cause you can spin a dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock—both Jewish!”
Want to listen to “The Chanukah Song” without trekking to the library? You can get it instantly on hoopla. Just borrow What the Hell Happened to Me?, the Sandler album on which the song appears, and within minutes you can rock out to the live version of the song.
Hoopla offers other Hanukkah music, too, so it's a great option, especially if you're looking for music at the last minute.
If you want something quirky, offbeat and catchier than “The Dreidel Song,” check out Hanukkah Rocks by the LeeVees, two rock musicians who, like Sandler, bemoan the lack of Hanukkah songs. Their sound is compared to They Might Be Giants, Barenaked Ladies and NRBQ, and they’ve been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Hook-filled melodies and lyrics about family abound: “You’re uncle’s here/Flew in from out-of-town/It’s nice to have him around/Even though he’s weird/It’s Hanukkah.” Two of the best songs are “Latke Clan,” with the aforementioned weird uncle and a Wall-of-Sound meets Coldplay chorus, and “Gelt Melts,” which has both Ramones-like shouts and jangly R.E.M. guitar.
Finally, although I’m a fan of both Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and klezmer music, I approached The Golden Dreydl: A Klezmer 'Nutcracker' for Chanukah with skepticism. I couldn’t imagine what this might sound like. This was, quite simply, a failure of imagination on my part, and I suppose this is why I’m in awe of musicians like those in the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra: The group's inspired rearrangement, which infuses the Tchaikovsky classic with the funky rhythms and striking chord changes of klezmer--Jewish folk music that originated in eastern Europe--is absolutely brilliant. (You can listen to a section below on YouTube.) The music accompanies author Ellen Kushner's reimagined Nutcracker story, in which a girl receives a magic dreidel for Hanukkah.
All of these alternative Hanukkah selections and more are available for your immediate enjoyment! Happy holidays!
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