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When digging through the vinyl bins at thrift shops & rummage sales, you tend to flip quickly, relying on the cover to capture your interest in a flash. Sometimes that works. A basset, two older gents in hats, one wearing one of those fake glasses & nose deals (one of the men I mean, I believe the basset’s nose to be real...), what’s not to grab your attention?
 When the title of said album is ‘Little Green Apples,’ one of my all time favorite Tom Jones tunes, I nearly swoon with delight. But I still had no idea of the impact this gem would bring to me... You see, I am a relative transplant to Fargo, North Dakota. A Cheese Head in the land of bland. While we eat the warm & wonderful shades of gold & yellow, with happy red wraps & festive rolls in nuts, here, well, it’s the land of lutefisk which is, and I quote gelatinous mass of white fish, topped with melted butter, white sauce or bacon drippings and an odor all its own, & lefse, a ‘bread‘ made of potatoes, which is supposed to be like a torlilla, but geeze... Not a bright holiday plate, nor a delight for the untrained palette. Perhaps if they put some shredded cheese on it? Or melted some cheddar? Sure, ok, make cheese head jokes! No, really, make them. It feels like home. Back home, we know we eat a lot of cheese. And we know others think we are funny for doing so. So it’s a badge of honor, that yes, we can wear around our middles & see evidence of on our thighs. But a true Cheese Head has humor to make it through! And some of us, have no culinary skills if cheese is removed from the menu. And this too, is joke we can handle... But here, in this foreign land of Norwegians & Swedes, what can a non-cooking, Cheese Head of a Kraut say that will be received as ‘humor’ and not ‘mean?’ Enter our basset covered album. Titled Honey/Little Green Apples & Other Swedish Smorgasbord, this entire album mocks the silly Swedes in an affectionate way that I can relate too. Just listen: In Little Green Apples, Stan Boreson sings the lyrics of Doug Setterberg: “Hilde isn’t very good looking & she’s even worse at cooking”. In "Honey", there's the essential ode to a large woman... And with “Just A Little Lefse Will Go A Long Way” I get to enjoy the weird food - if only musically, which is as far as I am willing to go without cheese on it. Ahh, thank you Stan Boreson & Doug Setterberg, for making my holiday full of warm humor & kitschy music. After all, home is where the humor is. Since my addiction to the Boreson Setterberg collaboration began, I have discovered that Mr Setterberg has passed away, but I will be interviewing Stan Boreson, right here at Kitschy-Kitschy-Coo! So stay tuned! Hey, subscribe now, and you’ll be the first to read it!
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