Rocky Top, by the Osborne Brothers.
I’ll talk about Christmas at Christmas, and this isn’t Christmas in July, and this isn’t a Christmas song, but, strangely enough, this song is one I heard as a kid at Christmas, when one of the (then) teenagers from the families we spent every Christmas with would play her guitar and sing a few songs — well, we all sang a million songs, around the organ, or with her guitar, and later I brought my own, and for a few years there it was a whole talent show, and sometimes there was a karaoke machine…
Anyway, Rocky Top. She’d play Rocky Top and it was awfully sweet. I didn’t learn until years later that it’s a University of Tennessee thing, and apparently, that’s relatively recent. We’re planning a little vacation in the Smokies in a few weeks, and I spotted Rocky Top on the map (which of course was not called Rocky Top until recently; they changed a town’s name to get a little rub of fame) and this caught in my head.