I’d been thinking that the right and proper thing to do this holiday season would be to upload and post some version of the Hanukkah song that I’d written and have been performing all year with the Paint Branch Ramblers, “Heyse Latke Kalte Latke” (hot latke cold latke). But when I went to track down the file on my hard drive, I discovered that I had at least enough material for 8 days of blog posts.

A great miracle has happened here!

So I’ll start below with a live version of the song as recorded at our recent December 6, 2008 show at the Home Grown Coffee House in Accokeek, Maryland. (Here, we pair it with Bill Monroe’s “Jerusalem Ridge,” taking you from diaspora to homeland in just under 3-and-a-half minutes).

Please wait until sundown to listen. And for the best possible effect, some white noise produced by the sound of latkes frying in the background would be nice. Add a plop of applesauce. Then, for each of the next 7 days, please return to this blog for a little more of the musical gelt, Viper style.

download the mp3

NOTE: If you’d like to hear more of the Ramblers, you can find the complete set of recordings from the show on their own blog. To start, you might begin with my hand-chosen “best of” from the show.