A Happy Hanukkah from an unexpected source.
Aimee Mann, the singer-songwriter best known for her songs on the “Magnolia” soundtrack (“Save Me,” the backing track to that time you considered taking a lot of pills, was nominated for an Oscar), teamed up with Paul F. Tompkins to sing the only popular Hanukkah song–“The Dreidel Song.” Sorry, Orrin Hatch, you meant well but your song gift to the Jews never really caught on.
“I didn’t realize ‘The Dreidel Song’ was so concerned with winning but that is in the holiday spirit,” Mann says between verses of the song. Winning is everything to Jews on Hanukkah. The only people who disagree are the ones that keep spinning “nun.” Losers.
Then Tompkins takes over from Mann and the song morphs into a Johnny Cash song. Apparently, there’s a very thin line between between “The Dreidel Song” and “Ring of Fire.”
He also attempts to rhyme “Israel” and “oil.” The Israeli government wishes those two actually rhymed and were synonymous.
Here’s are some of Tompkins’ original Hanukkah lyrics.
Then they lit the menorah with just one day’s worth oil/
It would take eight for more oil to be purified/
And it burned, burned, burned/
That day’s worth of oil/
For eight full nights.
I’m sure that the Man in Black is spinning like a clay top in his grave.
And you can listen and download the song in its entirety for free over at Mann’s site.
