Country Music Stars Die!

'Tis the season for xmas music, which I generally love if not sung by country music stars. Best xmas song ever - O Holy Night sung by Nat King Cole. Worst one ever - same song by the Judds. While working in the office one December we softly played various compilations of xmas CDs. Since we were busy, most songs faded into the background, but not that one. When the Judds, who know as much about singing as I do underwater aardvark ranching, hit the high note and screeched "YONNN-DERRRR", everyone in the office dropped their work and looked up with an expression like I had just waved a fresh dog turd under their noses, which was true only half of the time.

Previously, while slaving in Kmart, they played a wide selection of xmas tunes (where wide = about 4) that included a show tunes version of Jingle Bells that somehow failed to rise to the level of competence normally displayed by kindergarten classes hitting the rum (sample lyrics - "Jajajajajaja Jingle Bells! Jajajajajaja Jangle Bells!"). This still wasn't as bad as the country music love ballad written to Santa Claus, wherein the singer managed to add an extra syllable to his name. Seriously - every line began with "Say-ant-uhhhhh..."

Which was not as bad as this one. I don't know the title, and I don't want to know. Rather than sing the lyrics, the woman primly pronounced each syllable as if it was made of glass. Actualy lyrics (that I can remember) were:

Little toy train
Little toy tracks
Placed in a box
Carried in a sack
Carried by a man
Dressed in white and red
Little boy, isn't it time you went to bed?

While driving home I literally had a vision of sugar plums dancing in my head shooting the woman in the face while she sang that feckin' song. I hated it so much that I couldn't purge it from my head until I wrote a short story called "A Brief Future of Television" that was like the Gong Show but with double-barreled 12 gauge shotguns. That was before the recent spate of reality-based TV shows, which just shows how hard it is to keep parody ahead of reality. The story was published in Black Petals, an actual print magazine, so at least some good came from the trauma.

Happy Hannukwanzaaramadamasux ya'll.