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By now, you may have seen Billy Joel’s new song, Christmas In Fallujah, on the internets. There’s been a lot of commenting on blogs both pro and con. Much is being made of the fact that he enlisted a young singer, Cass Dillon, to do the song since Cass is the same age as a typical soldier serving in Iraq.

I only mention this because about a year and a half ago Naomi reviewed a uniquely poignant and sometimes bitterly ironic protest CD by Jefferson Pepper titled, coincidently or not, Christmas In Fallujah.

At the time, Slacker Country didn’t know that the song had been inspired by Jefferson Pepper’s neighbor, Army Medic David Maples.

After Billy Joel released his song/video, David’s mother Lisa put together a video of the original Christmas In Fallujah and posted it on YouTube.

I’m certainly not arguing that Billy Joel stole Jefferson Pepper’s idea here. I don’t know. Maybe he thought up the title and wrote a song about being stuck in Iraq for the holidays from a soldier’s perspective entirely on his own. I’m only posting this so the original song isn’t forgotten in all the fuss and furor…

Funny to review a “Christmas” CD with summer coming on strong in most parts of the country but we just had to.  Our excuse: we got this one after Christmas.  And, it’s not your typical Christmas CD.  You can tell that right off with the title track “Christmas in Fallujah.”  Doesn’t exactly give you visions of sugar plums, does it?  This one also makes a nice companion piece to Neil Young’s new release “Living With War.”

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