Santa Baby Sucks And I Don’t Mean Maybe
You gotta be shittin' me. They're ALREADY putting up Christmas lights and crap all over the new town center across the street from where I work. Right. In. My. Line. Of. Vision. And they expect me to have to endure that for the new few weeks, let alone do my part to help inspire the spirit of the annual holiday fleecing of the customers a full three weeks before Thanksgiving?
Oh hells no. Just put me in the back warehouse now. I will cheerfully unload trucks until January 1st if it means not having to deal with lights and tinsel and fake snow spray on the windows and women in reindeer sweaters with so-cute-you-could-yak Christmas tree ornaments for earrings and Harry Fucking Connick Jr. singing "The Happy Elf" ad nauseam... oh, definitely no Harry Fucking Connick Jr. singing "The Happy Elf" this year if I can help it. They better let me put on the Dr. Demento Christmas album every once in awhile if they expect me to play nice-nice with the ornery reindeer sweater-wearing bastids and no no no no no no no no no no nononono NO find some other schlub to wear the Trans World antler hat this year. Put me down for the Grinch suit instead. Because every season that we start instigating this shite earlier and earlier my poor heart shrivels three sizes too small (my voice already bears an unsettling resemblance to Boris Karloff's, plus friends tell me I live in a cave anyways).
Well, since I suppose everybody else is getting into the... sigh... spirit of the season early again this year I guess it's time to start thinking of new ideas for this year's annual Christmas mix disk -- or should I say semi annual, because I never got around to making one last year due to all that was going on at the time. I'm very pleased that I have somehow managed over the years not to repeat myself on any of these disks, but now it's gotten to where I can't remember everything that I have put on the disks from the past so this is either where my mnemonic prowess comes into play or I actually have to start scrounging up old disks to remember what went on where. I did stumble across my mix disk from 2003, so I at least have that guideline to follow:
"Blue Xmas" - Miles Davis w/Bob Dorough
"Don't Believe In Christmas" - The Sonics
"I Wish That I Could Stay (The Christmas Song)" - The Raveonettes
"Christmas In Hollis" - Run DMC
"Another Lonely Christmas" - Prince & the Revolution
"Long Way Around The Sea" - Low
"Hey America" - James Brown
"What Christmas Means To Me" - Stevie Wonder
"Lonely Christmas Call" - George Jones
"Santa Claus Is Smoking Reefer" - Squirrel Nut Zippers
"Father Christmas" - The Kinks
"Christmas In New Orleans" - Louis Armstrong
"Merry Christmas Baby" - Otis Redding
"Last Christmas" - Wham!
"Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight)" - Ramones
"Be Thankful" - Nate Dogg
"Jingle Bells" - Etta James
"Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" - Tom Waits
"Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas" - The Staple Singers
"Christmas Time For My Penis" - Vandals
"Fairytale Of New York" - No Use For A Name
"Home For Christmas" - Kate Bush
This is the second time I have put "Fairytale Of New York" onto a Christmas disk, the first time beautifully and heart-rendingly performed by The Pogues and the second, more pedestrian version by No Use For A Name. If I can wrangle up that thoroughly surreal version by The Irish Tenors then that would make the perfect Christmas triumvirate (or perfectly awful, take your pick). Too bad it's lyrically truncated at all to heck. Hearing Ronan Tynan call Finbar Wright a scumbag and a maggot would have really made my holiday complete.
At least I'll have an excuse to use Vance DeGeneres' "The Greatest Christmas Song Of All" this year. If anybody has some other bright ideas, place a comment and make a suggestion. Yes, YOU can be a part of this year's disk-making festivities! And I'll even send you one in the mail, howzzat?
Oh hells no. Just put me in the back warehouse now. I will cheerfully unload trucks until January 1st if it means not having to deal with lights and tinsel and fake snow spray on the windows and women in reindeer sweaters with so-cute-you-could-yak Christmas tree ornaments for earrings and Harry Fucking Connick Jr. singing "The Happy Elf" ad nauseam... oh, definitely no Harry Fucking Connick Jr. singing "The Happy Elf" this year if I can help it. They better let me put on the Dr. Demento Christmas album every once in awhile if they expect me to play nice-nice with the ornery reindeer sweater-wearing bastids and no no no no no no no no no no nononono NO find some other schlub to wear the Trans World antler hat this year. Put me down for the Grinch suit instead. Because every season that we start instigating this shite earlier and earlier my poor heart shrivels three sizes too small (my voice already bears an unsettling resemblance to Boris Karloff's, plus friends tell me I live in a cave anyways).
Well, since I suppose everybody else is getting into the... sigh... spirit of the season early again this year I guess it's time to start thinking of new ideas for this year's annual Christmas mix disk -- or should I say semi annual, because I never got around to making one last year due to all that was going on at the time. I'm very pleased that I have somehow managed over the years not to repeat myself on any of these disks, but now it's gotten to where I can't remember everything that I have put on the disks from the past so this is either where my mnemonic prowess comes into play or I actually have to start scrounging up old disks to remember what went on where. I did stumble across my mix disk from 2003, so I at least have that guideline to follow:
"Blue Xmas" - Miles Davis w/Bob Dorough
"Don't Believe In Christmas" - The Sonics
"I Wish That I Could Stay (The Christmas Song)" - The Raveonettes
"Christmas In Hollis" - Run DMC
"Another Lonely Christmas" - Prince & the Revolution
"Long Way Around The Sea" - Low
"Hey America" - James Brown
"What Christmas Means To Me" - Stevie Wonder
"Lonely Christmas Call" - George Jones
"Santa Claus Is Smoking Reefer" - Squirrel Nut Zippers
"Father Christmas" - The Kinks
"Christmas In New Orleans" - Louis Armstrong
"Merry Christmas Baby" - Otis Redding
"Last Christmas" - Wham!
"Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight)" - Ramones
"Be Thankful" - Nate Dogg
"Jingle Bells" - Etta James
"Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" - Tom Waits
"Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas" - The Staple Singers
"Christmas Time For My Penis" - Vandals
"Fairytale Of New York" - No Use For A Name
"Home For Christmas" - Kate Bush
This is the second time I have put "Fairytale Of New York" onto a Christmas disk, the first time beautifully and heart-rendingly performed by The Pogues and the second, more pedestrian version by No Use For A Name. If I can wrangle up that thoroughly surreal version by The Irish Tenors then that would make the perfect Christmas triumvirate (or perfectly awful, take your pick). Too bad it's lyrically truncated at all to heck. Hearing Ronan Tynan call Finbar Wright a scumbag and a maggot would have really made my holiday complete.
At least I'll have an excuse to use Vance DeGeneres' "The Greatest Christmas Song Of All" this year. If anybody has some other bright ideas, place a comment and make a suggestion. Yes, YOU can be a part of this year's disk-making festivities! And I'll even send you one in the mail, howzzat?
posted by Melissa at 11:56 AM
12 Comments:
You MUST dig up Excelsis: A Dark Noel; conceptually it's funny (goth-tone x-mas music) yet musically, it's quite listenable, but absolutely not what most people are expecting. I particularly like Love Spirals Downwards's cover of Welcome Christmas (that Whoville song from the Grinch), and the crunchy, blurry, fascinating and unrecognizable mess that Jingle Bells becomes under the ministrations of Loveliescrushing.
Oh, and some of the covers of Joni Mitchell's River (including her own, I guess, and Robert Downey Jr's) are a nice change from the relentless cheer.
I think that Christmas decorations should be put up in stores the week of Thanksgiving.
When I worked at Fresh Market they put up their Christmas candy display on November 1st! But I started bagging candy for Christmas on like October 18th!
Hey Randy! Always a pleasure when you stop by. :)
That Excelsis: A Dark Noel sounds mighty interesting. One thing my collection definitely lacks is more holiday goth music! I was just checking it out at allmusic.com and there looks to be a lot of bands whose names I am familiar with but not their music, since I haven't followed a lot modern goth music since the 80's. But that's good! Something new to look out for, and we might even have this at my store.
I'm already dying at the track listing -- Love Spirals Downward does the "Welcome Christmas" song from How The Grinch Stole Christmas?! Whatta riot! I'm suddenly reminded of a xmas party I went to years ago with a bunch of goth kids getting drunk and staggering out into the neighbor's yard to stand in a cirlce around their tree (just a ratty old twig of a Charlie Brown tree with a string of lights) holding hands and singing "Fah who for-aze dah who dor-aze..." while swaying drunkenly back and forth until the cops pulled up and told us we had to leave. And just for the record, I was completely sober.
I put Joni's version of "River" on an old disk some years ago. Whoa, Robert Downey Jr does a version, too? Now THAT I have to have!
Hey Anita, people were already looking for xmas CDs as early as October in my store! That's like not putting out the holiday candy early, and people getting pissed about it.
>Whoa, Robert Downey Jr does a version, too? Now THAT I have to have!
Well, it's embarrassing to admit I know this, but you'll find it on Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas.
Tori has a two Christmas-y songs recorded. The Little Drummer Boy and Purple People (Christmas In Space), yay!
BTW, a half hour after stopping by your blog and I've still got "Santa Baby" in my head. GEE, thanks!
i agree WAY to early for xmas shit. how ya been girly? my house came down today (watching all those dollar bill signs come down was hard). oh well.
-emily
Thanks for the Tori tip, Erin!
Hey Emily -- so tell me. Your house. Coming... er, down? When you say this, are you saying like... bulldozed?
Yeah bulldozed. Turns out its cheaper to bullldoze and build new than to fix the piece of crap thats there now (like 289000 to 186000). Fun. So i am officially a renter. again. it sucks. the woman is renting to us seasonally and she has a big ole lighthouse mural that we have to wake up to every day. yea.
i have to withdraw my comment about xmas coming to early. i just finished my shopping. for good reason: i HATE lines. any line. in starbucks. at disney world. in stores. i hate lines. so its worth it to me. but dont have any lights or any crap like that.
-emily
p.s. well there is a bitchin lighthouse fixture that lights up if that counts!
Wow -- builing back from the ground up again. I talked to a guy who was building a restaurant that way for just the very same reasons. Was your house really old? Or just received a lot of damage?
And did you do all your shopping online? I think I'm going to try and knock out most of mine that way this year. Work will keep me from the stores as usual.
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