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And Now, a Great Live Version of One of James McMurtry's Classic Songs: "Levelland"

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allegro12/24/2017 8:37:39 pm PST

I’m having flashbacks of a Christmas Eve about 40 years ago. Dear friends of my parents insisted we all go to their home for a traditional Swedish Christmas Eve. They were a very formal-type conservative (not in a political sense) couple and even my parents weren’t terribly excited about the idea but friends. It would be quite a change from our usual rowdy tradition of fried chicken, much booze (we’re Irish), gift opening, and poker. My older brother and I met at my parent’s house and we all had a drink and decided, hey, it’s just a couple of hours. It will be “nice.”

So we get to their home and we are escorted into their dining room where the table was filled with an exquisite spread of mostly unfamiliar dishes on the finest china. Clearly, days had been spent on the preparations. There were no chairs - they had been removed. They briefly explained the meaning of the tradition (that I cannot remember because you’ll see why) and gave us each a shot of Aquavit and a glass of beer. There was a traditional song after which we were to down the shot in one swallow chased by the beer. Then we would indulge in some of the food, followed by another round of song, shot, and beer. No idea what the song meant since it was in Swedish but by the third round we were all in on the chorus that sounded like “Hee-long-gor!” It got more enthusiastic as the evening progressed and our inhibitions were increasingly drowned.

I don’t remember much of the rest of the evening, not surprisingly. But the next morning I woke up at my apartment seeing a trail of clothes on the floor, my front door open, and my car only half-way in the parking place. Yet, it remains one of my more memorable Christmas Eves.