Oil Vey! Are These Some Sweet Tunes
To warm you up on the last days of Chanukah, we’re spinning the dreidel joints with Eddy Portnoy, author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press.
He's put together a playlist of eight tunes with titles that touch on some of the main symbols of Chanukah: fire, light, oily fried potatoes and donuts, more fire, and lighting the bong.
(Stay on the lookout for the exhibit he's curating on Jews and Cannabis, going up in spring 2022 at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
(We've listed the tracks and notes below in case you don't use Spotify)
Night Time Is The Right Time | Aretha Franklin | Night time is clearly the obvious time to get the Chanukah party started.
Mizmor Shir Lehanef | Klizmatics | The only Yiddish song about smoking weed, the perfect tune to light up to as you light the menorah.
Fire | Black Pumas | Third night - keep the flames burning high.
Dias Del Oro | Tommy Guerrero | It's all about the bringing of the light, day or night.
[Do The] Mashed Potatoes | James Brown | There aren't any latke songs as good as this and if you fried mashed potatoes, they'd basically be latkes.
Mmm, Donuts | Lunachicks | Sufganyot doesn't rhyme with anything and neither does donuts, but their fried, oily goodness is irresistible.
Melt | Monster Magnet | By the seventh night, there will be great globs of colorful melted wax drippings on your menorah
Marijuanaut's Theme | Sleep | Eighth night - the flames are high. Light up and take off.