johnjohndoe

I can't believe it - but this is the first Christmas season in over 20 years that I haven't heard that damned song, "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer."

I used to like it. I think it was 1980, maybe 81. I was working at a radio station in Medford, Oregon (KMED). We played the hell out of it.

It was written by a fellow named Randy Brooks. He was in a band but the guys wouldn't perform the song because it was so weird. In 1979 Brooks met this veterianarian/folk singer from San Francisco named Dr. Elmo Shropshire and sold it to him for $500.

Elmo recorded the song and pressed 500 copies for friends, family, ect. One of his friends passed it along to someone at KSFO in San Francisco and they started playing it. Every year it just got bigger and bigger until 1984, when Elmo and Patsy (husband and wife) signed a big recording contract with CBS records, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It's become the biggest selling Christams novelty record of all time...and I haven't heard it once this year.

There is a God.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.