With Thanksgiving upon us, I wanted to assemble a short list of some of my favorite gratitude-themed songs for the listening and viewing pleasure of the Daily Kos community.
I entered into assembling this list with the following criteria in place:
1. The song had to be objectively ‘gratitude’ themed
2. The song had to be good
3. The song had to have an enjoyable video available for embed
That last part made the task a little harder than I had expected prior to jumping-in head first, but alas, I’ve arrived with a nice little list of five.
So let’s jump down past the power-squiggle…
...and have a listen to some good ‘thank you’ tunes both new and old.
First, we're gonna start where all good mood music starts, at least in my opinion, with some great Soul Sounds of the Sixties. If this spirited gospel-inspired gem doesn’t put in the mood to express some gratitude, perhaps the mile-long collars and sweet dance moves will:
Sam & Dave – “I Thank You”
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Next, let’s turn the funk up to 10 and the clothing styles up to 11 with some live Soul Trail bliss provided by Sly & The Family Stone:
Sly & The Family Stone – “Thank You”
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This middle one’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, sure to lose you your indie cred faster than you can say “yeah, well who the hell cares!?” For those seeking another catchy and upbeat expression of gratitude, just remember to sing, “Nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah” when saying thanks with Natalie Merchant:
Natalie Merchant – “Kind & Generous”
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Now that we’ve totally got all the indie kids hiding in the other room with their laptops so their families don’t see them jamming out to Natalie Merchant, we’ll bring some good Beatles-esque indie pop from the pride of Deerfield, Illinois – The Redwalls. This is just a great little tune:
The Redwalls – “Thank You”
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And to close it out, we’re gonna put just little bit of an edge on our expressions of thankfulness with the pride of my home state of North Carloina, The Avett Brothers. This one’s live and a little rough in the film quality, but perfectly captures the spirit of this song about road-weariness and focusing on what’s really important in life:
The Avett Brothers – “Nothing Short of Thankful”
And that’s my short and sweet Thanksgiving video playlist. So what are your favorite ‘thank you’ tunes? Let us know in the comments, and if there’s a video from the tubes, give it en embed so we can all have a listen
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Programming Note: Tune in tomorrow for a diary paying tribute to the greatest Thanksgiving tune of all times, Arlo Guthrie’s masterpiece: “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” Being a huge Thanksgiving tradition for my fam and many others throughout the nation, I felt the Massacree definitely deserved its very own diary on Thanksgiving Day itself.
I expect to publish that one right around 11 AM Eastern. Stay tuned, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you all!