I interrupt the thankfulness to display the cold, dark and evil being that is the real me. I interrupt in order post a petition that the following song be banned from radio airwaves and yay, verily, existence. (Aaron believes that this will cost me friends and followers...but...so be it). I must stand up for what I believe. Or rather, I must be free to rant on my own blog.
We, like every other cheesy family in America, eagerly tune our car radio to the station that launches into non-stop Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. And for the most part, it cheers us on and brightens the season. However in the last couple of years I have noticed a most heinous addition to the station's seasonal playlist.
I speak of course of the vomit-worthy song, "Christmas Shoes". The most shamelessly, revoltingly, schmaltzy, emotionally manipulative rubbish ever put to song. Now of course, I am not a country music fan so it is possible this type of thing is going on all the time on country radio stations...but it's not fair to inflict on the rest of us who are just there for a little Mannheim Steamroller and Mariah Carey circa 1994, without any warning.
Here's a little taste of the lyrics:
Sir I wanna buy these shoes for my Momma please/
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size/
Could you hurry Sir?/
Daddy says there's not much time/
You see she's been sick for quite a while/
And I know these shoes will make her smile/
And I want it to look beautiful/
If Momma meets Jesus tonight
Naturally, the little boy is poverty stricken and filthy and of COURSE when all his pitiful pennies have been counted there aren't enough and the hardened narrator is all softened up and he realizes that this child has been sent to show him what "Christmas is all about".
Here's what I think happened. Some song-writer decided he wanted a Christmas hit. He knew that in order to make it super duper popular, people had to cry. He cast his mind back to every Hallmark movie he'd ever watched and then made a list of sure tear jerkers and wrote them on the back of a Denny's napkin:
- Dying Momma
- Poor kid (dirty, loves momma)
- Cranky rich dude (forgot Christmas spirit)
- Pennies (not enough for gift)
- Something to do with Momma meeting Jesus
- Rich dude helps boy, remembers Christmas spirit
And the thing just wrote itself from there. I know this because when I was a small child I wrote many a Christmas play for my younger siblings to star in, based essentially on the same premises. Except since I was not doing it for mercenary purposes, I am pretty sure I never went so far as to kill off the momma.
Incidentally, while I was looking for a photo of the album online, I saw one of the pro-Christmas shoes people theorizing that obviously the emotionally damaged haters had not been sufficiently loved by their own mothers, and thus could not possibly understand the yearning to buy her a pair of tacky stilettos in order to make her presentable for Jesus. And so, I would like to absolve my mom from any blame here. She has nothing to do with the darkness in my soul which creates a Pavlovian homicidal response to this song. Tweet this!
13 comments:
Hilarious! I do have to admit, though, that this song does make me tear up. Yup, I'm a sucker.
Oh yes! I'm with you, one hundred percent on this one - that song needs to go. I'm thinking about (A) starting a list, and (B) writing my own. This goes on the list, as well as The Date Rape Song (http://www.biguglymandoll.com/?p=227). What else? And besides, between us we should be able to write something at least as good as Stephen Colbert, right?
replace christmas shoes with christmas balls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVkp1MaRukY
you won't be sorry.
I heart you. That is all.
That song also makes me insane and I also immediately think that the writer of said song just wanted a hit. Every time I hear it I feel a combination of compulsory sadness and welling up of tears, while at the same time wanting to throttle the singer and/or songwriter for making such an unoriginal song and being opportunistic.
I hope to never ever ever come across that song!
ROFL -- i'm tearing up right now, but not because of sentimentality -- from laughing so hard at you. ryan makes jokes about that song so often that it should be old, but it never is because we hate that song so much. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Not only will I keep following you, I will sign your petition! I hate overly sappy songs that are clearly written to be maudlin and make money. There's another one like that I hate, called "Alyssa Lies" about child abuse...it's awful.
I'm with you-I HATE songs and movies which capitalize on tragedy. I think there is a difference between genuinely exploring the feelings surround sad things and making a buck off them.
This was a Christmas story before it was a song. A little plagiarism going on here?
Like Jen Lynn, I have, thankfully, been spared the pain. Never heard it, and plan to keep it that way. I think I am strange because even old timer concerts i.e. Cliff Richard and the like leave me cold. Enough with the looking SO far back. Let's reach into the future, please. Loved your post, and appreciate the disclaimer.
Marmie.
Hahaha I was *just* talking about this song today. I'm doing a "25 Saddest Christmas Songs" countdown on my blog starting tomorrow, and this is totally going on it. So much fun to mock.
Though you haven't lived until you've seen it performed as poetry at a speech tournament. Oh yeeeeahhhh...
Please add my signature to your petition. Corpses don't need shoes, anyway. Clearly the kid should have spent his pennies more wisely.
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