Surely, you’ve heard of Pittsburghese. And, we all know the song about Santa coming to town.
Well, a Pittsburgher blended the two about 20 years ago. And the song — recorded separately from being written — continues to sparkle ‘n at.
Yinz better wahtch aht
Yinz better not paht
Yinz better not cry,
I’m tellin’ yinz hauscome
Santa Claus is commin’ dahntahn
Of course, it’s the Yinzer version of the popular “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”
In 2015, I talked with Kevin Harkins for a story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Sewickley Herald.
Writing the song came pretty easy for Harkins.
“I was always the guy at the law firm who could do the Pittsburghese accent,” Harkins said of the regional dialect commonly referred to as Pittsburghese.
Get this — the song spread virally before Facebook and Twitter became a thing!
Harkins thinks the song has endured because of the number of Pittsburghers who fled the region looking for work.
“A lot of people had to leave the city to get a job,” he said. “So there were all these Pittsburghers across the country who were seeing it and thinking of Pittsburgh.”
And, at least as of 2015, he still was receiving messages about the lyrics.
“Every Christmas we’d get pings back from people who saw it,” he said.