Just when I think I've said what I wanted to say, something comes to mind. I am out on the web searching for music. I came across a song from last year that was fantastic when I heard it. The song hit the nail on the head. It was a wake up call to shoppers and Jesus-lovers worldwide. It was a bullet in the head for Americans ---and it had an element of truth that you rarely find in traditional Christmas carols.
"Christmas in Fallujah" by Billy Joel and sung by Cass Dillon
The song still applies this Christmas. Why should we have to see U.S. troops on television sending us season's greetings from Iraq?
To all who regularly visit this site, we know this war should have never begun in the first place and that Bush and Cheney should be tried and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
So, to think that U.S. soldiers are spending time in Iraq in war based on false pretenses---Well, I doubt too many Americans are troubled by this fact on their precious Christmas Day. I am. And I wonder how many more Christmases will be spent in Fallujah before we end this war. (And even with hope and change coming a month and a half before Christmas, I know that this song may become "Christmas in Kabul" if Americans do not speak up and begin to ask more questions and show more interest in what government is doing to humanity.)
"Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" and other novelty Christmas tune sensations cannot hold a candle to the somber truths of the blues. And one might become irritated by the thought of being blue on Christmas, but this Christmas especially, I know, Americans are feeling the blues.
So, it's songs like this one by John Lee Hooker called "Blues for Christmas" that truly resonate with me this holiday.
"Blues for Christmas/I ain't got a dime/Blues for Christmas/I ain't got a dime/I'm sitting here wasted/With my head hung down"
If you've read some of the postings on CommonDreams, you'd know about the down side of Christmas. Nothing resonated more this holiday season then this story about a grandmother who cannot offer her family stability and therefore, cannot offer her family a good Christmas celebration.
Home for the holidays? Never again. It takes years to recover from bankruptcy or foreclosure and for some of us, there are not enough working years left to do so; the big banking interests we just helped bail out will view us as too risky for a very long time. And our government will not challenge that reality. The best we economic refugees can hope for is that we can hang on to that little box of ornaments, stockings and candleholders as we move from lease to lease to lease making sure our rent is paid and we are warm. There really is no place like home for the holidays, and for many Americans, that Norman Rockwell sort of holiday setting will never again be possible.
Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole---People without their homes this Christmas could care less about Christmas traditions. Their resentment levels and their levels of disgust with life must be through the roof. And, I shudder at the thought of how many families are on the streets right now when they should be in the warmth of their home.
I also shudder at the thought of all those Wall Street casino capitalists who threw their Christmas parties in the last week and opened their Christmas bonuses and used Christmas to manipulate and convince their workers to make another sacrifice so they could keep their job in this economy.
All those Scrooges looking forward to a prosperous future in the money lending business---doesn't it make you sick?
Amos Milburn singing "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" will definitely hit home for many Americans this season. For all the warmth one may have had, how to pay for Christmas will be on the minds of many in the first few months of '09 for sure.
"Christmas time comes but once a year/Oh, I'm so happy/My kids are happy too/It take the next six months to pay my bills/When I think about it folks it give me chills/But I don't care about it folks caus/Christmas comes just once a year."
Let the good times roll. Put it on the credit card. And another credit card. And open another credit card. Oh, what about this Diner's Club card? Yep...It's good for paying for good times too.
Not too many families probably had the fortitude or courage to sit their kids down and explain to them how to enjoy Christmas without the frivolities normally associated with Christmas.
How do I know this? Well, how many families have sat down to assess how they live life and go green?
I was granted the privilege of being able to come across this wonderfully cynical downbeat mistletune when Bob Dylan played during his Theme Time Radio Hour Christmas special on SIRIUS Deep Tracks.
By Bob Dorough & Miles Davis, the lyrics still ring true today:
Merry Christmas
I hope you have a white one, but for me it's blue
Blue Christmas, that's the way you see it when you're feeling blue
Blue Xmas, when you're blue at Christmastime
you see right through,
All the waste, all the sham, all the haste
and plain old bad taste
Sidewalk Santy Clauses are much, much, much too thin
They're wearing fancy rented costumes, false beards and big fat phony grins
And nearly everybody's standing round holding out their empty hand or tin cup
Gimme gimme gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme
Fill my stocking up
All the way up
It's a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy
Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the fal-de-ral
Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all
What I call
Fal-de-ral
Bitter gall.......Fal-de-ral
Lots of hungry, homeless children in your own backyards
While you're very, very busy addressing
Twenty zillion Christmas cards
Now, Yuletide is the season to receive and oh, to give and ahh, to share
But all you December do-gooders rush around and rant and rave and loudly blare
Merry Christmas
I hope yours is a bright one, but for me it bleeds
So, as Christmas Day comes and goes, I will sit back and enjoy some ham, rice, baked goods, the presence of family, and the good ol' Christmas blues.
As a subscriber to SIRIUS radio, I have it tuned in to B.B. King's Bluesville.
Lightnin' Hopkins, Roosevelt Sykes, Charley Jordan, Freddie King, Louis Jordan, and other great blues masters will play guitar and pour their heart outs on everything from sadness to economic woes to temporary happiness to just plain romantic misery.
If you ain't swingin' to the Rat Pack this holiday season, pop in some Charles Brown (or something like it) and dig the blues. It will humble you and prepare your soul for the Depression America is about to enter.
Merry Christmas
Have a good one, OENers.
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