Bob Dylan’s Thanksgiving Radio Show: A Playlist of 18 Delectable Songs

Image by Row­land Scher­man, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

If you’re look­ing for a sound­track for Thanks­giv­ing, you could do worse than to let Bob Dylan cre­ate it for you.

From May 2006 until April 2009, Dylan host­ed the Theme Time Radio Hour, a week­ly radio show on XM Satel­lite Radio. Each show revolved around a dif­fer­ent theme (e.g., “Weath­er,” “Drink­ing” or “Base­ball”). But the episodes all had one thing in com­mon — they pre­sent­ed lis­ten­ers with an eclec­tic mix of music, every­thing from LL Cool J and Chuck Berry, to They Might Be Giants, Bil­lie Hol­i­day, and John­ny Cash. Try­ing to describe the radio show, the­ater crit­ic Ter­ry Tea­chout wrote in The Wall Street Jour­nal: “To lis­ten to Theme Time Radio Hour is to redis­cov­er the sense of musi­cal adven­ture that old-fash­ioned disc jock­eys with strong­ly indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties offered in the days before big-mon­ey sta­tions pinned their fis­cal hopes to the rigid Top 40-style playlists that took the fun out of radio.”

Today we bring you Episode 30 of Sea­son 1, “Thanks­giv­ing Left­overs,” which orig­i­nal­ly aired on Novem­ber 22, 2006. The show fea­tures 18 songs, select­ed and intro­duced by Dylan. The songs (find a list below) aren’t dish­es cooked fresh. No, they’re “left­overs” — tunes that Dylan had hoped to squeeze into pre­vi­ous radio shows but nev­er quite man­aged to do. Yet, togeth­er, they make for a pret­ty good meal. You can stream them all above. And if you like what you hear, head over to the Theme Time Radio Hour Archive, where they’ve appar­ent­ly archived all 100 episodes, audio includ­ed.

1. “Turkey In The Straw” — Lib­er­ace (1952)
2. “Hal­lelu­jah, I’m A Bum” — Har­ry McClin­tock (1926)
3. “Let Me Play With Your Poo­dle” — Tam­pa Red & Big Maceo (1942)
4. “Yard Dog” — Al Fer­ri­er (1972)
5. “The Turkey Hop” — The Robins with John­ny Otis Orches­tra (1950)
6. “Hon­ey­suck­le Rose” — Fats Waller (1934)
7. “Twelve Red Ros­es” — Bet­ty Har­ris (1966)
8. “Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes” — Skeets McDon­ald (1952)
9. “Them There Eyes” — Bil­lie Hol­i­day (1939)
10. “Angel Eyes” — Jesse Belvin (1959)
11. “Gun­slingers” — Mighty Spar­row (1963)
12. “Let’s Be Friends” — Bil­ly Wright (1955)
13. “Whiskey Is The Dev­il (In Liq­uid Form)” — The Bailes Broth­ers (1947)
14. “Teach Me Tonight” — Dinah Wash­ing­ton (1954)
15. “Teacher Teacher” — Rock­pile (1980)
16. “Iodine In My Cof­fee” — Mud­dy Waters (1952)
17. “You Eat Too Much” — Harold Bur­rage (1956)
18. “Pie In The Sky” — Cis­co Hous­ton (1960)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan Reads From T.S. Eliot’s Great Mod­ernist Poem The Waste Land

Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.