Saturday, December 30, 2006

A suicidal seasonal song

Despite my decades of devotion to Tom Waits, I still from time to time come upon 'rarities' of his that I'd not previously heard, or even known about.

Just last week, I discovered that back in the '80s sometime he collaborated with Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy on this jokey seasonal offering, a kind of 'anti-Christmas' song. It's a slight, ramshackle thing - sounds as if it's hastily cobbled together, with each of them improvising verses or lines alternately (it's pretty easy to guess which are Tom's, which are Peter's). However, since I've only just discovered it, I am playing it to death. (The Canadian manager of the bar where I first heard it has just e-mailed an MP3 of it. Thanks, Dave!)

Alas, I don't have the wherewithal to upload the song file to this website. And I have tried - in vain - for the past 10 days to find this song (or any reference to it) on the Net. I have no idea where my buddy Dave can have dredged it up from!

So, for now, you'll have to make do with the lyrics. Enjoy.


Christmas Sucks


Oh, give me a noose I can hang from the tree
I need no excuse to end my misery
This holiday season is all the more reason
To die


Oh, pull up a stool and give ear to a fool
Who once found some solace in this season of Yule
Who now sees this season is all the more reason
To cry


I put on my mittens, one green and one red,
Then I walk alone where they bury the dead
The snow falls as I grieve
It's a gothic, death-raw Christmas Eve


The bottle is empty, the sleigh has a flat
The stripper in my bed is ugly and fat
Her tassels are tangled
And what's worse, my jingle won't jangle


This time of the year makes me sick to my guts
All this good cheer is a pain in the nuts
When it's your career to be down in the dumps
'Tidings of comfort & joy' really suck


I feel like St Nicholas is pulling my leg
This thing we call Christmas is a sorry black plague
This holiday season is all the more reason
All the more reason
To die
All the more reason to die
All the more reason to die

All the more reason to die

1 comment:

Froog said...

I finally dug up a video of Christmas Sucks! five years later. Turns out it's just an impersonation of Tom and Peter by a band called Porn Orchard.