Saturday, December 04, 2004
Son of a Nutcracker!
Today, while gearing myself up for entering the zany world of the mall on a Saturday during Christmas season, I remembered that the best way to get in a good mood was to listen to Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which, of course, is on my CD of the ultimate holiday songs*.
I do not mean any of this ridiculous "Band Aid 20" business with Chris Martin and the like-I'm talking about the original. Boy George, George Michael, Sting, Simon LeBon, Bono, Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, etc.
You may think that this group of musicians is the cheesiest assortment of singers ever in the history of the world, and you'd be correct. You may feel that the subject matter of the song--the starving folks in Ethiopia, don't you know--is rather depressing, and you'd be correct. You may say that you don't like George Michael, in which case, I'd have to cut you, because my love of George Michael knows no bounds.
At any rate, it may not be typical holiday fare, but damn if it's not a great song. Not great as in good, but great as in fluffy. For my money, there's nothing in the world better then when Bono wails, "Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you", real dramatic like.
So that psyched me up to venture to the mall, though it didn't do me much good when I was stuck walking behind the slowest people in the history of creation, or the gaggle of middle school girls who would randomly stop and hug each other. It was all very bizarre.
Really. I'm all for taking your time shopping, but the holiday season is high pressure, y'all! You can't just STOP WALKING to compare lip gloss or whatever or count the money in your wallet! GOD!
Not to mention that the mall was blisteringly hot--I had two Diet Cokes while I was there. Evil marketing ploy, that. And the heat, um, gets to me and makes me buy things for myself instead of shopping for others. Yeah, it's the heat's fault, that's the ticket...
Highlights of the trip included the man playing the french horn in the entrance to Lord and Taylor (huh?) and the random choir singing in the food court. From now on, "Winter Wonderland" will always be associated with Taco Bell. Sad, really.
It's also fun to watch little kids get their picture taken with Santa, because I swear, the Santa they have is on leave from Attica. I rarely see people so creepy, he looked positively evil sitting on his throne (Of lies!) and all of the kids had positive panic attacks whilst having their picture taken. The "elves" looked flummoxed as to how to calm the children down enough to take a photo. I left after a while, so I'm not sure if they ever resolved that, or took to doping the children up.
The fetch holiday cd, for those of you who were wondering (and those who weren't, because it's my blog, neener neener) has the following songs:
1. Band Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (Fab! Aside from the Bono line, I'm partial to the way Simon LeBon sings "There's a world outside your window" I don't know why.)
2. Mariah Carey "All I Want For Christmas Is You"
3. Run DMC "Christmas In Hollis"
4. Bruce Springsteen "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (I was in love with Bruce when I was little and I adore this song)
5. The Waitresses "Christmas Wrapping"
6. Jackson 5 "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"
7. Brian Setzer Orchestra "The Nutcracker Suite"
8. Donny Hathaway "This Christmas"
9. Wham! "Last Christmas" (George Michael 4evah!)
10. Kylie Minogue "Santa Baby"
11. Nat King Cole "O Holy Night" (best song ever, for real. It makes me cry, but it's so, so pretty)
12. Otis Redding "Merry Christmas Baby"
13. John Lennon "Happy Christmas/The War Is Over"
14. David Bowie and Bing Crosby "Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth"
15. The Vince Guaraldi Trio "Greensleeves"
16. The Kinks "Father Christmas"
17. Bing Crosby and Doris Day "Baby It's Cold Outside"
18. Keith Richards "Run Rudolph"
19. Johnny Cash "Hark The Herald Angels Sing"
20. The Love Actually Soundtrack "Christmas Is All Around"
21. The Temptations "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer"
22. U2 "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
23. The Pogues "Fairytale of New York"
24. Judy Garland "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
Mallory at 12/04/2004 11:23:00 PM
4 Comments
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at 3:51 PM
Rayanne Graff said... The "elves" looked flummoxed as to how to calm the children down enough to take a photo.Jimmy would have managed it just fine.
Wham!'s Last Christmas makes me sob like a small candy-deprived child. When I was younger I thought it was the most devastating account of relationship break up, like, evah.-
at 6:54 PM
Mallory said...
Jimmy would have handled it perfectly, I know.
"Last Christmas" really is one of the best breakup songs of all time, seriously. The pain in his voice! Oh, George Michael...-
at 12:48 PM
jbird said...
Hello! I came here via your comment from Sean McCarthy's site. I'm thoroughly enjoying your blog. (Though, I would argue that the best part of Do They Know It's Christmas is Sting singing "the bitter Sting of tears.")
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at 4:05 PM
Mallory said...
Why thank you very much! And I do enjoy Sting's line as well. That whole song is just-it's perfect, really.