I Will be Domestic, for They Have Been Born (Bing Crosby)

Language: Italian

There's considerably more to this song, but I figured I didn't have to do all the lyrics if I didn't want to, especially if I was pretty sure I had never heard most of them.

I don't know if this was really written by Bing Crosby. Doubtful. But I'm a little pressed for time, and don't, frankly, really care all that much either.

The last couple days at work have been pretty miserable. People are mean, impatient, whiny, exceptionally stupid, rude, oblivious, demanding, short-fused, and just all-around miserable to be anywhere near, at this time of year, and I hate all of you. Yes, all of you.

Christmas can bite me.

-Jessi

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I will be domestic, for they've been born;
You can count on me.
I pray it has snow and mistletoe,
and that the tree is present.

The will finds its eve: they've been born
where the love-light is tipsy.
I will be domestic, for they've been born,
if only in my dreams.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane)

Language: Greek

Wikipedia has an entry on all the drafts this song went through, with an eyebrow raisingly dark “early draft”, (1) complete with Old Testament God threatening to muck things up for you and an “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” caliber opener: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last.”

Heartening, then, to see the “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow” in the original Meet Me in St. Louis version, always my favorite line, and which omission and replacement by that “hang a shining star” nonsense I can now blame on Frank Sinatra.

All that said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Jim Nabors “shining star” version, and not because of “make the yuletide gay,” either (as I am no longer in junior high, NB), but because he holds out the word “bough” at the end for like nine measures but doesn’t actually resolve the word, so it comes out like, “Hang a shining star upon the highest baaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.”

Also, when the song is over, I do my famous-in-some-circles Sergeant Carter impression and go, “Merry Christmas, Pyle.”

If you call me, I’ll do it for you, but until then you’ll have to muddle through somehow.

- Samanth.

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Himself has one cheerful few Christmas.
You leave your heart to be light.
The following year, all our problems will be from the view.

Himself has one cheerful few Christmas.
It makes the homosexual yuletide.
It’s the following year that all our problems will be miles along.

Other time as in the old,
Golden days of dance floors,
Of friends of past that were dear in us.
Will neighbor be in us, still, a time?

Someday shortly all we will be together, if the fates allow.
Up to then, it will be supposed, we tangle somehow.
Thus, himself has one cheerful few Christmas now.

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(1) Update, a year later, almost to the day: the Wikipedia article has been Wikipedia'd into near-pointlessness, and I don't feel like fixing it right now. Interested parties are advised to read There's Something About Merry on the Entertainment Weekly site, which being almost a year old itself hopefully is here to stick around a bit. -SM

Rudolph, the Red-Smelled Reindeer (Gene Autry)

Language: French

So let's get seasonal already.

The store where I'm working switched over to Christmas music a week or so before Thanksgiving. I've never understood why people think that shoppers want to hear Christmas music at Christmas time in the first place, personally: it's one thing if you're listening to it because you want to listen to it, like if you throw on the Muppets Christmas album and get really stoned and make a night out of Miss Piggy singing "Fiiiiiiiiiiive! Golden! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings!" and eating potato chips. But it's something else to be subjected to it everywhere you go, with no escape, and this is particularly obnoxious for employees in such places. I am not, personally, down with the whole Baby Jesus thing. Even if I were, I am not a big fan of the music that goes along with the whole Baby Jesus thing. I like "Angels We Have Heard on High." I used to like "Silver Bells." And that's about it.

To make it worse, the songs we're hearing over and over again aren't standard versions of the songs: a few of them are, but mostly they're popped-up versions sung by famous people (I'm pretty sure I heard Cyndi Lauper a few weeks ago, though she's not resurfaced, so maybe I'm mistaken.). So it takes a little while for my brain to identify the songs as being Christmas music, but that doesn't help as much as you'd think it would, because my brain treats it like a game and actually focuses on the songs to some extent now. I get them stuck in my head, too. The Elvis Presley version of "Silver Bells" was in my head for hours last Friday after I left work. Nobody needs that.

Which, every co-worker seems to have his or her own personal bane. Mine is either Peggy Lee / "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" or an unknown song that sounds like maybe the Jackson 5. It's not one of the traditional Christmas songs: so far all I've been able to make out is the super-repetitive and earnest-sounding chorus, "it's going to be a VERy SPECial CHRISTmas, a VERy SPECial CHRISTmas." One of my co-workers is particularly tormented by the standard version of "Frosty the Snowman." Another co-worker reserves her special hatred for something she describes as "Burl Ives, set to techno," which I have no idea what she's talking about but it does sound truly dreadful.

It's worth noting, if there are any store owners reading this, that I have not heard one positive comment yet from any customers about the presence of the Christmas music. A few have commented negatively. Most seem not to notice. So if you decide to play Christmas music round the clock, keep in mind that mostly what you're doing is making your employees, and a few customers, mad at you. Nobody else gives a damn. People do like Christmas lights, though.

Anyway. So. Let's get seasonal, seasonal. I wanna get seasonal. Lemme hear your lobbies pop, your lobbies pop. Etc.

-Jessi

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Rudolph, the red-smelled reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you never see it,
you would even say that it is luminous.

All of the other reindeer
called him names, for the laughter, and
they never let poor Rudolph
join any reindeer play.

Then, one misty Christmas
took care of Santa. He came to indicate:
"Rudolph with your so-luminous nose,
don't you guide my sledge this evening?"

Then, all the reindeer liked it
while they shouted outside with joy,
"Rudolph the red-smelled reindeer,
the history will enter you downwards!"