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Nazareth “Hair of the Dog”/ “Holiday”
Oct. 31st, 2011 09:13 amOne x-mas, soon after high school, a friend was trying to figure out what to bring to a party as presents for everyone. This was our punk rock/metal crowd. Contrary to our genre, we had a holiday part every year that included someone in a santa costume, gifts, eggnog, and loud music (mostly X, Mojo Nixon, and Johnny Cash, if memory serves).
These weren’t expensive presents, mind you. One year a certain member of our group got about 10 frames for a dollar at the thrift store and cut out pictures from album liner notes and framed them (I got a nice pic from Kiss “It’s Alive II”) The next year he outdid himself when he managed to find about 15 copies of this single and give one out to everyone.
We listened to it a lot that night, but I’m not sure I’ve pulled it out in the last couple of decades.
“Hair of the Dog” is as much of a classic as Scottish metal can be. Tough guy rock that doesn’t sound tough at all 35 years later. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like a teen-age badass when you sing along, even if you are singing along ironically and not a bad-ass at all.* “Now you're messing with a son of a bitch” indeed.
One of the things about punk rock that made me fall in love was that the lyrics tended to make real life sense. Whether I was actually going to “sniff some glue” or “lynch the landlord” those things were more accessible in one’s daily travels than the lyrics for “Holiday”, the b-side of this record.
Not to be confused with the Sex Pistols song with holiday in the title – the most prescient critique of capitalism and imperialism ever sneered in the history of punk – (“Cheap holiday in other people’s misery… I don’t want a holiday in the sun, I wanna go to the new Belsen”) “Holiday” by Nazareth has more of a written-in-the-back-of-a-tour-bus-because-that’s-what-rock-stars-are-supposed-to-do feel about it.
”Mama, mama, please no more jaguars
I don't want to be a pop star
Mama, mama, please no more deckhands
I don't wanna be a sailor man
Mama, mama, please no more facelifts
I just don't know which one you is
Mama, mama, please no more husbands
I don't know who my daddy is.”
Rating: One person’s classic is another’s 5 minutes of catchy irony
*it should be noted that some of my friends were bad-asses. You know, just for the record
These weren’t expensive presents, mind you. One year a certain member of our group got about 10 frames for a dollar at the thrift store and cut out pictures from album liner notes and framed them (I got a nice pic from Kiss “It’s Alive II”) The next year he outdid himself when he managed to find about 15 copies of this single and give one out to everyone.
We listened to it a lot that night, but I’m not sure I’ve pulled it out in the last couple of decades.
“Hair of the Dog” is as much of a classic as Scottish metal can be. Tough guy rock that doesn’t sound tough at all 35 years later. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like a teen-age badass when you sing along, even if you are singing along ironically and not a bad-ass at all.* “Now you're messing with a son of a bitch” indeed.
One of the things about punk rock that made me fall in love was that the lyrics tended to make real life sense. Whether I was actually going to “sniff some glue” or “lynch the landlord” those things were more accessible in one’s daily travels than the lyrics for “Holiday”, the b-side of this record.
Not to be confused with the Sex Pistols song with holiday in the title – the most prescient critique of capitalism and imperialism ever sneered in the history of punk – (“Cheap holiday in other people’s misery… I don’t want a holiday in the sun, I wanna go to the new Belsen”) “Holiday” by Nazareth has more of a written-in-the-back-of-a-tour-bus-because-that’s-what-rock-stars-are-supposed-to-do feel about it.
”Mama, mama, please no more jaguars
I don't want to be a pop star
Mama, mama, please no more deckhands
I don't wanna be a sailor man
Mama, mama, please no more facelifts
I just don't know which one you is
Mama, mama, please no more husbands
I don't know who my daddy is.”
Rating: One person’s classic is another’s 5 minutes of catchy irony
*it should be noted that some of my friends were bad-asses. You know, just for the record
