+++A Very Special Lucha Buddha Christmas Entry+++With that being said though, there are always exceptions. Now I hate to put down any Christmas song and it truly hurts my soul to do...but even on a cold December night, when you're dizzy off some homemade wine and you got The Best Christmas Ever on the stereo, occasionally one of those songs come on that make you seriously consider throwing Wu-Tang back in. Here they are...
Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys
Needless to say The Beach Boys are the bomb, Jamie and I had our first dance as a married couple to their classic God Only Knows. But what the hell are they blabbing about in this? I've heard this song my entire life and from my first memory of it I couldn't tell you what the idea is here. Are they stating that Santa is little? Because there is a whole mythology out there that tells us the direct opposite, Saint Nick is not little. In fact he's the direct opposite, a fat bastard.
And why are they singing lyrics like"Run Run Reindeer" and "Merry Christmas Santa" in the same breath, with no rhyme or reason at all? Is this a message to Santa? A song about reindeer? Does Saint Nick really sport "goggles" when he's delivering presents? At times my wife and others will try informing me at some point in the song they say that Santa's sled is actually the Little Saint Nick, but at that point my head hurts and I'm irritated. Really? An omnipresent wizard couldn't come up with a better name for his sled then his own with little in front of it? It's bigger then him. That's like me buying a yacht and calling it Little Michael, I could see maybe if it was a toaster oven or something, but even then something a bit more creative would suffice.
Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
Do we really need Elvis with his drunken, Southern drawl giving us a damn color lesson on Christmas? Decorations of red, trees of green, Christmases of white, and of course his blllluuueee memories, the blllluuueee snow flakes falling, he has some Blllluuueee drink in his cup as he's watching Mr. Perfect wrestle the Blllluuuee Blazer on the WWE 24/7.
A Soldier's Silent Night
I do like the overall sentiment of this one, I just hate the way it's delivered. Specifically, why does Santa Claus sound like he's just stumbled out of the Ol' North Pole Pub, breath stinking of Whiskey Sours and now he's so intoxicated, he's barely capable of reading the poem written down in front of him?
I just don't know, perhaps some things just don't mix. Like for instance feel good Christmas music and honoring our troops. We dance and mingle and kiss under the mistletoe to Sinatra and Crosby and even Mariah Carey. And then maybe we finish off the evening with a nightcap and sit around the kitchen table to discuss the trials of the world, war and such.
Also, maybe if the GOP stopped voting against stuff like benefits for our veterans Santa wouldn't have to come across solders sleeping lonely in dilapidated shacks. But I digress.
Finally the worst of the bunch...
Christmas Shoes - Newsong
Now before anyone thinks of me as a heartless bastard for including this one, I want you to drop your preconceived notions about the song and let me learn ya on something.
Do we live in such an age of mindless consumerism that a song can be written about a poor kid spending what could be that last few hours his mother has on the planet, running around trying to buy a pair of shoes? While he could be at her bedside? And because of the overly cheesy delivery of the song, including romantic lyrics about Heaven and signs from God, to the kid singing at the end, all the way to the TV movie and novel that actually spawned from the song...people let this stuff affect them in some personal way?
No, the song may actually state "this is what Christmas is all about" but it's precisely what Christmas is not supposed to be about. If Christmas wasn't about spending your last dime on presents that will be forgotten about in a week, then the kid in the song wouldn't have had it in his mind that his mother needed those shoes desperately or things just wouldn't be right in the world. People need people on Christmas, not iphones or Xboxes or purses or shoes. While those things are all great and add to the overall enjoyment of the Holidays, it doesn't make them.
If I were a respectable artist I would remake this song complete with more worldly, all religion friendly lyrics, not just specifically for the Jesus freaks, perhaps do the unthinkable and make it spiritual but secular (oooh scary). And I would rewrite it to open up with the kid working three jobs to buy his mom some new shoes, she falls ill, he forgets about the shoes, stays by her side when she passes and then donates the money he earned to cancer research.
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