Why are There No Thanksgiving Songs?

Just as there are people who still have their Halloween decorations out in the middle of November while others have already put up a Christmas Tree, there are songs just now being released that are trying to catch the passing tides of the Halloween spirit while other tracks are coming out now in preparation for the upcoming waves of the Christmas Season. However, there is hardly any music directed towards the American holiday of Thanksgiving. While some may argue that major musicians refrain from Thanksgiving songs for the reason that it would not spread outside of the United States, that still does not explain why holidays such as Independence Day are showered with songs about liberty and freedom. Why are there no Thanksgiving songs?

And the answer can be found in Nicole Westbrook’s The Thanksgiving Song. 

When this song came out in November of 2012, it was received with nearly universal disapproval (as can be seen by the fact that the music video has over 270,000 dislikes.) Some credit this to the Rebecca Black Friday fiasco and how many associated the two songs as being similar, but the lyrical content of the song points to an entirely separate reason. Analyzing the lyrics of The Thanksgiving Song, you can quickly see what might be the most simple way to answer this question: Songs about turkeys and mashed potatoes serve as terrible lyrical content.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or in this case any sane musician, to realize songs pertaining to eating yams, pumpkin pie, and stuffing do not provide a very good subject for a song. Even if Frank Sinatra sung The Thanksgiving Song it would have still been a terrible song from a lyrical standpoint. Though this is only one example, there is a vast sea of similar if not worse songs. There will always be exceptions; it can be said that, as a whole, the relationship between music and Thanksgiving could seriously be improved.