Song Of The Day 12/20/2012: Yorgi Yorgesson - "I Was Santa Claus At The School House"

On the seventh day of Christmas, I bring you grotesque Scandinavian stereotypes partially borne from the Seattle seafood industry. Yorgi Yorgesson was actually an American radio personality named Harry Stewart, who was born in Tacoma. His Wikipedia biography indicates he played banjo on radio station KVI. They still play banjo on KVI, except they play banjo with your head, man.

Stewart developed the Yorgesson persona in Los Angeles, conceiving of him as a "Swede-Hindu mystic." I kid you not. Furthermore, a website biography states that "'Yorgi' was a cross between Ivar Haglund (locally famous as owner of Ivar's Acres of Clams, Seattle) and Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu spiritualist." Calling Gandhi a "Hindu spiritualist" kind of feels like someone missed the larger picture, but fine, we'll roll with it. "His costume consisted of Swede boots, Hindu loincloth, lumberjack shirt and a Hindu turban." That's nothing, I saw about three people wearing that outfit in Capitol Hill the other day.

ANYWAY, Stewart/Yorgesson had a hit single with a track called "I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas," but since we strive for obscurity on this here blog, I've found another song which outlines the hazards of playing Santa Claus to a largely thankless, violent crowd of children.

Side note: Stewart also developed other sensitively profiled characters, according to Wikipedia: "Japanese (Harry Kari), country bumpkin (Claude Hopper) and German (Klaus Hammerschmidt)." He must have been one party animal at the United Nations.

(Acknowledgement: In a roundabout way Merwyn Haskett contributed to today's selection process.)