December 08, 2023
Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman makes a guest appearance singing on 'Dreidel Song' from 'A Philly Special Christmas Special,' the second holiday charity album from Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata.
Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman pitched in vocals on a standout track from "A Philly Special Christmas Special," the second holiday album from linemen Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata — not to mention the multitude of musicians and producers who helped make it sparkle.
"Dreidel Song," a lively rendition of the traditional Hanukkah tune, features a familiar Bo Diddley-style drum beat with a howling harmonica, maracas and washed-out slide guitar. The vocals are sung in a chorus that brings to life the festive nature of the tabletop game the song celebrates.
The new version brings a twangy flair to the song. With Hanukkah having started Thursday night, the group shared a video from the studio session that shows Roseman singing, swaying and spinning a dreidel during the making of the song.
People hearing this track may benefit from a little background on the spinning top game and the music behind it.
Those who have never played dreidel probably have a general notion that it's similar to other top- and dice-based gambling games. That's true, but it also has an interesting history and a few fun wrinkles based on the four Hebrew letters that are shown on each face of the top.
Although dreidels are most often associated with Jewish tradition, their origins trace back to a spinning top game called totum or teetotum, which became popular around Christmastime in England and Ireland beginning in the 1500s.
The four sides of the teetotum historically were inscribed with the Latin words for "Nothing," "Everything," "Half" and "Put In." The rules of the game are simple. Depending on which face is showing when the top comes to a rest, players have to take or add items from the pot of sweets or money that's at stake. In England, the top would sometimes use English letters to designate the moves players had to make for their turns. The game is usually played in small groups and continues until the pot is gone.
Some Jewish legends suggest the game goes much further back. One 19th century rabbi and other sources suggested Jewish rebel warriors, known as the Maccabees, used dreidels to distract Greek authorities during the ancient Seleucid Empire between 312-63 B.C. Studying the Torah was forbidden, so the theory went that kids and teachers would hide their books and keep dreidels around to spin whenever they were in danger of being caught.
The more widely accepted historical account is that teetotum became popular among Jews after the game entered Germany, where it was called "trendel" — meaning "spinning around."Jews who spoke Yiddish, their Germanic variant language in central and eastern Europe, didn't understand the letters on the sides of the top. They swapped them out with the Hebrew letters "nun" ("not, or "nothing"), "gimel" ("entire," "whole"), "hei" ("halb" or "half") and shin ("shtel arayn," or "put in"). Some say the letters stand for the phrase "nes gadol haya sham," or "a miracle happened there," referring to Israel. The name dreidel comes from the Yiddish word "dreyen," meaning to twist or turn, although other Yiddish words also were used for the game as well.
On Hanukkah, dreidel is often played by kids using a pot of foil-wrapped chocolate coins called gelt, from "geld," the German word for money.
"I Have a Little Dreidel," the song that inspired the cover on "A Philly Special Christmas Special," was written and composed in New York in the early 20th century by Samuel E. Goldfarb. The song didn't become popular until the 1950s, when Hanukkah became more commercialized alongside Christmas.
In English, the song's lyrics say, "Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay," but most dreidels are actually made out of plastic or wood because they spin better that way. The Yiddish lyrics are written from the perspective of the dreidel, which sings that it was made out of "blay," meaning lead. The metal was was once a popular material used to make dreidels in Europe.
The vinyl edition of the Eagles' new holiday album includes an appearance from actor, comedian and hip-hop artist Lil Dicky. On "Dreidel Song," the Cheltenham High School grad starts things off by inviting Roseman to show the Eagles players how to play dreidel.
"A Philly Special Christmas Special" features a star-studded lineup of guest artists with ties to the Philly area, from Patti LaBelle to The War on Drugs and Waxahatchee. The album has drawn rave reviews since its release earlier this month, led by hits like the Kelce brothers' duet "The Fairytale of Philadelphia," which hit No. 1 last week on Billboard's Rock Digital Song and Holiday Digital Song sales charts.
Proceeds from album's sales will benefit the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Children's Crisis Treatment Center.
