A Cautionary Tale

Weekend Assignment #142: Your Christmas/Holiday gift is the ability to expunge one highly annoying yet popular Christmas/Holiday song from the history of the world. Which one is it?

Extra Credit: Fruitcake: Ever actually eat any?

   Funny you should mention this, John. Just the other day, someone on the J-Land Bar and Grill message board asked a similar question. The following was my answer:

   In my area, there is a radio station, called 97.3 EZ-Rock. They play "today's soft rock," a syrupy-sweet combination of Adult Contemporary, and Muzak. For some inexplicable reason, this radio station has decided that it is a good idea to play Christmas music 24/7 starting early November every year. For this reason, many retailers set their in-store radios to EZ 97.3 for the Christmas season. As their entire playlist consists of about fourteen songs, this generally results in retail sales clerks going a little bit loopy by Christmas eve.
   One of the songs this radio station plays on a regular basis - say once every thirty-five minutes or so - is called The Christmas Shoes. Have you heard the one?

Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, 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 would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight

  OK, ladies, go and grab your box of Kleenex. I'll wait.
   Are you back? Let's continue. The reason I hate this song is the reaction I just got. Not that you all got a tear in your eye when you read those lyrics, but that those lyrics have been craftily designed to provoke just such a reaction. From the very first time I heard that song, something about it bothered me. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but it always struck me as being less sincere than it sounds. In order to write this piece today, I did some Googling, and discovered some things I didn't know about the song, and suddenly I find my finger right on the button. Listen:

   Did you know there was a book written about that song? Neither did I. Did you know they made a TV movie, based on the book written about that song? Neither did I. In searching for information I discovered the CBS.com page about it, and read the story behind the song. Did you know that the song was based on an e-mail that got forwarded across the Internet a few years ago? Yeah, one of those things you get in your mail every day letting you in on the secret $250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe, or offering to pay you thousands of dollars for forwarding e-mails, or promising you the Taco Bell dog will do a dance on your computer screen, or warning you not to open an email with a certain subject line or a virus will burn a hole in your hard disk drive. You know, to match the one in your head?
   According to the CBS web page, Eddie Carswell, of the band Newsong, received the e-mail, and was inspired to write the song.

NewSong, a Christian musical group, sent its record "The Christmas Shoes" to a top DJ in St. Louis in November 2000. When he played it, the station literally shut down: the switchboard was inundated with calls and the computers crashed from the barrage of emails. With virtually no promotion, the record had 3500 spins around the country in just one week, and shot to #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Charts in a record-setting three weeks.

   That's quite a story. It almost sounds like something one would read in a forwarded e-mail, itself. But the most telling thing, to me, is the alleged origin of the song itself. If the story is true - and I can find no suggestion that it is not - then I understand why I object to the song so much. Those forwarded e-mails we all get are designed things. Sure, the tale told may have a kernel of truth to it, but it grows in the telling, as all stories do. People add little details when they recount it to make it more compelling. Like the message in a game of broken telephone, the end result often bears little or no resemblance to the original.
   So what I object to about the song is the way it is crafted with the intent of creating the exact emotional response that it does. I'm not saying that the story isn't true, just that it sounds to me to be too well designed to be. It's smarmy, and maudlin, and fully too manipulative, and we hates it, yessss, my precioussss.

   Sorry.

   Here's my point. If you, as I do, hate this Christmas song, there is a lesson to be learned here. Never, ever, under any circumstances, forward one of those stupid e-mail stories. I'm serious. Even if it isn't a hoax, you're just going to cause pain to someone, somewhere along the line; maybe even in a way you never could have imagined. Do this, and retail employees everywhere will thank you.

Extra Credit: No. Fruitcakes are not meant to be eaten. They are meant to be saved, and passed on to someone else the following year.

tags: Memes, Weekend Assignment, Christmas, Music