We Need A New Christmas Song
We Need A New Christmas Song
The Action Cookbook Newsletter's desperate attempt to save the season
This Christmas season is looking a little bit shaky, but I know what we need to save it.
Universal availability and widespread acceptance of a vaccine that can help stop the tide of a virus that has upended all aspects of normal life for the majority of the last year, and also financial assistance for the people and industries most directly impacted until a meaningful societal recovery can be realized?
No.
I mean, well, yes, but no. That all would be good, definitely: it would ease the pain millions of people are currently feeling, prevent further senseless loss, and of course allow me to return to doing the things I love, like spending time with relatives, attending crowded events, and breathing heavily on buffet tables. But I know that’s not going to happen in the next 18 days.
No, what we need to save this Christmas season is a new Christmas song.
But Scott, there are already many Christmas songs.
This is incorrect. There are actually seven Christmas songs.
I came to this realization on Saturday night, when I took my children to see a drive-through holiday lights display. There were a ton of people waiting to get into the cave (what? Louisville is a normal place), and as we sat in standstill traffic on the highway off-ramp, we listened to a Christmas music playlist on repeat. From this mildly harrowing experience, and having worked multiple holiday seasons in retail, I can definitively say there are only seven core Christmas songs, and every song you hear is just a variation on one of those seven.
Those songs are:
It Is Christmas
For decades, musical artists have found long-lasting radio play and consistent royalty checks from simply standing in front of a microphone and declaring that it is Christmas. That’s pretty much all you needed to do for a hit. “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas”, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, etc. State the obvious, and get out before anyone asks more complicated questions.
But Also, Here Are Some Details About Christmas
Maybe stating that it’s Christmas isn’t enough for you—you’ve got to add to the canon. Frosty The Snowman, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town—these songs give us the origin stories, introduce new characters, tell us what those characters are doing in the lead-up to the holiday. It’s the Christmas Extended Universe, and it has a lot of continuity issues.
(As a complete side note, my four-year-old daughter broke down into tears when I couldn’t tell her the names of Santa’s reindeer the other night. I offered Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen and Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen, but before I could even get to Rudolph she was sobbing and insisting “not the ones from the song, I MEAN THE REAL ONES”. If you know the real ones, please let me know. It has been very tense around here not knowing.)
It Is Christmas, But I Am Sad
Most actually *good* Christmas music falls into this category. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, “White Christmas”, etc. Any song that you can picture a World War II GI singing outside their tent on a snowy night, really. This also includes this year’s song of the season, Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December”.
(Here is my favorite version of that song.)
It Is Christmas, But I Am Singing About It In An Unexpected Way (And That Is The Entire Point of This Song)
[SCENE: DECCA RECORDS, 1957]
RECORD EXEC, chewing cigar: Alright, kid, you got a Christmas song for me?
BOBBY HELMS: yeah, it’s called Jingle Bell—
RECORD EXEC: [gruffly] It’s been done!
BOBBY HELMS: —Rock.
RECORD EXEC: [jaw drops, cigar falls out, desk catches on fire] I love it.
These range from classics like “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”, “Run Rudolph Run” all the way up to newer standards like “Christmas In Hollis” and yes I just called a song from 1986 “newer” so we’re going to move on before anyone thinks too hard about that.
It Is Christmas, And I Have Been Doing Drugs, Because It Is The 1960s
I have not received any more satisfactory explanation for the existence of the Alvin & Chipmunks Christmas song than this.
It Is Christmas, And I Am Horny For Some Reason
Christmas is a time of cold weather, gift-giving pressures, financial obligations and (in other years) travel to family gatherings; it is the least sexy time of the year. Yet some of you insist on being horny for Santa, a rotund mythical elf who is hundreds of years old and is also already married. I cannot help you if you refuse to help yourself.
It was kinda weird when Eartha Kitt did “Santa, Baby”, but it was so much weirder when Michael Buble changed the lyrics to “Santa, Buddy”. Quit sending Santa mixed signals, Michael. Tell the man what you want and don’t waste his time with games.
Anyways, you can lump in “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, and pretty much anything Katy Perry has sung while wearing a Santa hat here.
It Is Christmas, And I Would Like To Buy Another House
There is no other reason why Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney would or should have done Christmas songs, but they did.
If you are ever stuck on a long car ride with me and this song comes on, you will be subjected to my rant about how Bruce Springsteen should know more personal details about Clarence Clemons than the fact that he played saxophone. Why would Santa bring him a new sax, Bruce? He already has a sax. He’s playing it now. Did you ever bother to find out what his hobbies were? Maybe he likes making pasta.
I’m a delight on car rides.
That is all of the Christmas songs.
And they’re mostly fine, but none of them have saved *this* Christmas. What decades of Christmas movies have taught me, though, is that a catchy song and a heart full of holiday cheer might be all it takes to turn your fortunes around.
Maybe it’ll work for us! Maybe we can send 2020 packing with the right catchy tune.
With that in mind, I would like to write a new Christmas song this week, and I’m going to need your help. Please jump into the comments with one or more details, pulling from each of the Seven Core Christmas Songs. We’re going to combine them all like they’re Infinity Stones and come up with the best* Christmas song ever made.
*results not guaranteed
I NEED FROM YOU:
A weird way of stating that it is Christmas
A strange addition to the Christmas canon, like a new animal or something
A thing that we are sad about, and maybe not the obvious thing we are all sad about, because hopefully that’s less of a thing after this year and we’d like to keep cashing satellite radio royalty checks
A musical genre that those fools listening out there in Radioland wouldn’t expect to have a Christmas song, but it DOES
A twist to this song that could only be conceived of by a 1960s writer on drugs
A Christmas thing you are horny about, you degenerate weirdo
An artist in dire need of a comeback hit that we can try to sell this to
I will pick from the details you supply, and write a Christmas song that I will share in this Friday’s newsletter. Dolly Parton says she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in a single day (a miracle). Paul McCartney is said to have dashed off “Wonderful Christmastime” in 10 minutes (it shows). I think we can write a lasting Christmas hit this week, and maybe, just maybe, we can save this season.
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
Okay, after a week in the lab, here it is: the worst best Christmas song ever written
"Yule Tides"
The lights on the bushes were twinkling, the front yard Santas inflated
I should have been feeling jolly, but instead was irritated
It was the twelfth month of the year, and two dozen days into it
The twenty-fifth would be here soon, but I didn’t think that I could do it
Yes, they say that late December is the most magical of seasons
But I was sad at Christmas… for a variety of reasons
[rapid-fire rapping, but bad, like “We Didn’t Start The Fire”]
My New Year’s resolutions fell apart way back in March
I was going to do a fitness program but I didn’t even start
There’s nothing left to watch / since they cancelled Netflix’s Glow
It was a pretty decent for a streaming TV show
Major League Baseball keeps messing with the rules
The universal designated hitter is the handiwork of fools
They’ve cancelled half the minors and are messing with the rest
I don’t think that Rob Manfred has passed the commish test
I used to think that college football had way too many minor bowls
But they cancelled the Bahamas game and I really miss it so
The IRS has caught on to my tax evasion schemes
And lately I’ve been having “went to school naked” dreams
Why haven’t they made any more Christmas specials in claymation?
And we haven’t even got to the many serious problems with our nation
Yes, everything’s gone all wrong for more than nine straight months
Even this rhyme itself went wrong ‘cause nothing rhymes with months
Will they edit this verse down to fit when they play it on the radio?
I hope they don’t delete but I understand it maybeso
/whoooooooooooaa….
[back to crooning]
Yes, my heart it had been broken
My bank account was running slim
I decided that I should clear my head
With a nice and frigid winter swim
I’d seen a flyer posted at Publix about one week ago
(this song takes place in Jacksonville, I guess that’s a fact that you should know)
It sounded kind of silly, but also maybe weirdly fun
I thought that I might try the annual Polar Bear Swim plunge
So I drove down to the beach, on a chilly Christmas Eve'n
People were gathered, stripping down, the winter winds a breezin'
They’d dive into the water, brave the bitterness and cold
Shock themselves into a new year and toss on out the old
The faces in that crowd were merry, their smiles wide and bright
Their bodies tanned and trim, while mine was pizza doughy white
As I disrobed I began to feel a sudden wave of shame and timidity
Covered my bits and tried to hide until they said "get ready!"
We ran into the water, and the cold it was so frightening
I gasped for air and shivered, but it was also quite enlightening
All my landlocked problems seemed to float off on the tides
The only problem was the current that then took me for a ride
I drifted beyond the breakers and straight on out to sea
It seemed that night the ocean had chose to murder me
What an unfortunate and sad turn my whole saga had taken
I stared up at the moonlight sky, feeling quite forsaken
I looked up at the stars, and out across the water
I guess this is what I get for doin’ something I shouldn’t ougtha
And just as I’d resigned myself to watery oblivion
Something broke the surface, it was shiny, bright and shimmerin’
A horn like rainbow silver golden twisted sugar candy
Was it the pointy nose of walrus, mermaid or manatee?
The beast it fully surfaced, and said “No, my name’s Arlo,
I’m the non-denominational magical holiday Narwhal.”
“I’ve got a broad appeal to folks secular and observant,
And I’m here to save your foolish hide from a Yuletide rip current.”
I said “well, Mr. Narwhal, that’d be right nice, if’n it’s no bother,”
He said “Please, call me Arlo, Mr. Narwhal was my father.”
“And don’t be silly, rescues are just one of my many duties,
And I think you’ll find I have ample merchandising opportunities.
Please meet my friends, the stars of a future cartoon franchise.”
And then surfaced a whole cast of family-friendly animal good guys!
Manfred Manatee and Millard, the Sea Urchin
Randy the Resolution Rabbit (though how he swam I’m not quite certain.)
Jingles the dead raccoon? That’s not even a sea creature.
But we can work him in, there’s plenty of room for features
A dolphin and three octopi, and twelve whale-riding toads
They’ll all be introduced in subsequent episodes
I said, “please can you help me, my commercial-friendly friends,
I’ve decided this water should not be where my story ends.”
“I’d like to go back to shore, I’m feeling newly inspired—
But I don’t think I can swim that far, my arms are cramped and tired.”
My new friends nodded, and they hatched a plan to save me
They’d give me a ride to go along with the new lease on life they gave me
So they formed a flying wedge, their fins and flippers in a linkage
And everyone was nice enough to not comment on my shrinkage
They towed me back to the beach, pushed me ashore with some cursing
Right back where I’d started, the Polar Bear Club was dispersing
One figure was left standing on that moonlit Duval County sand
The most beautiful person on which my eyes would ever land
She offered my shivering body a clean and fresh dry beach towel
And didn’t even notice the departure of Team Narwhal
I don’t know what she saw in my frigid, sopping wet figure
But for some reason she invited me to join her, for Christmas dinner.
I accepted it and thanked her, and shared that I’d almost died.
She said, “No, you just got swept up in a festive Yule Tide.”
A weird way of stating that it is Christmas
"Somehow, miraculously, Christmas, a millennias old tradition, has come again."
A strange addition to the Christmas canon, like a new animal or something
"Manfred, the Christmas Manatee who commits insurance fraud"
A thing that we are sad about, and maybe not the obvious thing we are all sad about, because hopefully that’s less of a thing after this year and we’d like to keep cashing satellite radio royalty checks
"The fact that the insurance investigators are catching on to him"
A musical genre that those fools listening out there in Radioland wouldn’t expect to have a Christmas song, but it DOES
"Ska"
A twist to this song that could only be conceived of by a 1960s writer on drugs
"In Florida, your house can't be taken from you in a bankruptcy proceeding."
A Christmas thing you are horny about, you degenerate weirdo
"That Manatees were often confused for mermaids by very sad sailors in the 18th century"
An artist in dire need of a comeback hit that we can try to sell this to
"Manfred Mann (NOT DEAD!)"