"Talking Christmas Goodwill Blues" is on God Made Me Do It: The Christmas EP, John Wesley Harding's first release for Sire Records in late 1989. It's a Christmas song in the Guthrie/early Dylan "talking blues" style, about the exact opposite of what was popular in 1989. His given name was Wesley Harding Stace (or Wes, as he's called in the first verse), and he adapted John Wesley Harding as a stage name from the 1967 Bob Dylan album.
Working in an early-Dylan style with a Dylanesque stage name gave JWH two strikes out of the box for many people, but the undeniable charm of the song won over most of the gangsta folk haters. The first time I heard the song was when he played it live in a promo appearance on SF's Live 105 a few days before Christmas 1989. I was driving down to my dad's house in Southern California, and was stuck in holiday traffic the edge of Live 105's signal range south of San Jose. I was won over from the opening stanza: "Christmas comes but once a year/364 days to get your ass in gear. He's a sucker, he's a fool/The man who don't revere the yule".
I remembered hoping the traffic wouldn't clear up so I didn't lose the signal before the song ended. It didn't, and Wes followed "Talking Christmas" up with a version of Depeche Mode's (brand new) "Personal Jesus" as (quoting) "Johnny Cash would do it". I was sure Wes would be banned from Live 105 forever for dissing the Mode, but the worked amazingly well in that style. Twelve years later, Johnny Cash actually did cover "Personal Jesus", on one of those Rick Rubin albums. That radio appearance was like a holiday visit from Nostradamus!
John Wesley Harding - Talking Christmas Goodwill Blues
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