♫ [Focus – “Hocus Pocus”] ♫
I will never forgive you, John Lennon.
Never.
Oh! Oh, oh, hey! Sorry, didn’t notice you there.
Well, as promised, I’m now going to talk about my top six FAVORITE Christmas songs,
the six songs that have managed to pull through the overplay and even get better over time.
And hopefully, this helps you forgive some of my choices from my LAST list.
♫ [Gene Autry – “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”] ♫
♫ [Bobby Helms – “Jingle Bell Rock”] ♫
♫ [Paul McCartney – “Wonderful Christmastime”] ♫
♫ [John Lennon and Yoko Ono – “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”] ♫
Ugh…
Anyway, I’ll be following the same rules I set in my first review:
It’s all based on personal opinion, and I won’t be limiting myself to rock or metal Christmas songs,
though again, we’ll be seeing a lot of those.
So, with all that in mind, let’s get down to it.
♫ [Queen – “Thank God It’s Christmas”] ♫
Now, this first choice receives HEAVY overplay, at least where I live.
And while it can get a bit grating, I can totally see why it’s played as much as it is.
If you haven’t figured out yet, it’s because this song is friggin’ amazing!
[Note: Because this song is an instrumental, I will not be analyzing any of the lyrics.]
“Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a strange mashup on “Carol of the Bells,”
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and symphonic metal that SHOULDN’T work, but totally does.
I mean… just listen to it!
If this hadn’t been done just right, it could have flopped hard,
but the way that the instrumentals are done makes it sound so epic that I swear it could be used in a movie trailer or something.
♫ [“Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” plays over the trailer] ♫
It totally works, doesn’t it?
Actually, this song has quite the interesting background, and reading up on it gave this song an extra layer of enjoyment for me.
This song was originally recorded by the progressive metal group Savatage—
wait, how do you pronounce that name?
Is it like “savage,” but with a “vat” in the middle? SAVatage? SaVATage?
Or maybe it’s like “sabotage,” but with a V? SAVotage?
Sava—I’m getting off topic, aren’t I?
Anyway, this song was recorded in 1995 for their concept album, Dead Winter Dead,
before being re-released in 1996 by the side project Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their album Christmas Eve and Other Stories.
Dead Winter Dead tells the story of a Serbian boy and a Muslim girl who fall in love at the height of the Bosnian War,
which was ongoing at the time.
However, “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” takes a departure from the plot to tell the real-life story
of a cellist born in Sarajevo in the ’50s.
He left when he was young and became a respected musician in Europe, playing with a lot of symphony orchestras
before returning to his hometown in his mid-thirties to find it in ruins and under a siege that lasted for years.
Rather than taking shelter, he would go into the town square every night,
climb on top of the rubble, and start playing Christmas songs on his cello amidst all the destruction.
When he was asked years later why he did this admittedly careless thing,
he said that he wanted to prove that, despite all the war that was going on, the spirit of humanity was still alive there.
For me, this only adds to my ability to enjoy this song.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra has repeatedly attempted to recapture the power of this song,
with other songs such as “Wizards of Winter” and four whole Christmas-themed albums, but in my opinion, this is the best.
“Jingle Bell Rock” may have failed at making Christmas “cool,”
but “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” definitely succeeds at making Christmas epic.
Now who the hell doesn’t love the Kinks?
They started off in the ’60s as one of the “big four” bands of the British Invasion
and had big, poppy hits like “You Really Got Me,” a song that is probably the most well-known of their entire catalogue…
And like many things, we can probably thank Van Halen for that.
But I personally think they really came into their own in the ’70s and ’80s,
when they reinvented themselves as a band with insightful lyrics that still had a lot of wit.
You weren’t going to hear many other bands write songs like “Celluloid Heroes,”
which talks about the vapid, quickly changing nature of show business and how you can be forgotten as soon as you make it big.
Similarly, you weren’t going to find other bands making quirky, offbeat songs like “Lola” or “Destroyer,”
which, despite their humorous nature, ALSO talked about serious topics a lot of the time.
Many of my transgender friends have said that Lola’s message still resonates with them to this day.
And then we have “Father Christmas.” Let’s take a listen.
It starts off with the narrator describing how he was raised up with all the traditional Christmas values:
namely, the desire for more toys and stuff every year.
Good ol’ consumerism!
But the song takes a dark turn when the narrator, now grown up, takes a job as a department store Santa.
Now ignoring the logistics of how some kids were somehow able to beat him up
and how none of the other department store staff noticed this and tried to stop them…
…I think their demands really exemplify what this song is about.
See, this is something that a lot of people in our culture don’t really think about.
Around the Christmas season, we all get so caught up in the whole mess of buying stuff and spending money on gifts for everyone else,
and the desire to get more free stuff around Christmas, that we rarely stop to think about those who don’t have those problems
because they don’t have that money to spend in the first place.
Though if they were so poor that they had to mug Santa Claus to get money,
it does beg the question of how they would know about games like Monopoly and have played them before.
And I know people who have been in this exact situation.
Single mothers or fathers who are unemployed or barely make any money, trying to keep their children fed, clothed,
and in school while their sanity slowly slips away.
Uh, and speaking of which, kids like THAT are probably the REASON for their parents’ sanity slipping.
Now, if you want to get technical with it, yes, there ARE other songs that talk about what poor people do on Christmas.
But many of them screw it up in a way that’s hard to ignore.
“The Christmas Shoes” by NewSong tells the story of a poor boy who just wants to buy his dying mother a pair of shoes,
so she can look good when she enters heaven.
But if the concept alone isn’t contrived and cheesy enough that it could be a Hallmark special,
the song falls apart beyond redemption with these lines.
I don’t think I need to explain what everyone else has pointed out:
The idea of God killing some poor kid’s mom just to make sure everyone is cheerful on Christmas is extremely messed up!
And I do mean that EVERYBODY has talked about this, from Lindsay Ellis…
God killed that woman so you’d get your shit together. Don’t fuck with God!
…to Patton Oswalt.
Somebody in a bad mood on my son’s birthday?
Bullshit!
Give that kid’s mom cancer!
Make him 7 cents short for the shoes,
This guy’ll buy ‘em, and then he’ll be in a good mood!
For the record, I’ve only ever heard of this song because everyone’s criticized it.
That’s why I didn’t put it in my “Worst” list: Criticizing it has become cliché by this point.
Even Insane Clown Posse tried writing a Christmas song from the perspective of poor kids with “Santa Claus Is a Fat Bitch.”
And yes, that IS the actual song title.
But even then, it fails because…
Oh yeah, because Insane Clown Posse are idiots.
[booing]
What? What? Come on, they are! They are!
“How do magnets work?” Seriously?!
Dude, you have the Internet! Go Google it and piss off with this pseudo-deep BS.
Meanwhile, with this song, it has just the right amounts of wit and seriousness to make it work.
A great song by a great band. What else is there to say but…
Now, for this next one, is it cheating to put two songs by the same artist on this list?
If so, I don’t care.
Go figure: The most well-known comedy musician of all time makes two of the best comedy Christmas songs of all time.
To absolutely no one’s surprise.
Now, I know that I may have spoken badly about The Weird Al Show,
but that was mostly because of CBS screwing things up. None of that was Al’s fault.
Here, we get to see Al, unrestricted by any network, doing what he does best.
I mean, if you want to get technical with it, he is BEST known for making parodies of popular songs,
and both of these songs are original… though just barely.
♫ [“Weird Al” Yankovic – “The Night Santa Went Crazy”] ♫
♫ [Ozzy Osbourne – “Mama, I’m Comin’ Home”] ♫
Huh. I wonder why Ozzy Osbourne has never made any Christmas songs.
Unless you count “I Am Santa Claus.”
♫ [Bob Rivers – “I Am Santa Claus”] ♫
I already mentioned both of these two songs in my last review when I was talking about “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,”
and I talked about how both of these songs were GOOD examples of dark comedy Christmas songs that didn’t come off as horrible,
but I feel like I should explain WHY these songs are so good.
So, let’s start off with “Christmas at Ground Zero,” from the album Polka Party!
First of all, let’s talk about this song’s subject matter.
“Christmas at Ground Zero” was released in 1986 at the height of the Cold War.
The United States and the Soviet Union had been in an on-again, off-again war since roughly 1947
and had engaged in a nuclear arms race in the ’50s and early ’60s, where each side would make bigger and bigger nuclear bombs.
There was a very real and growing fear in the US that nuclear war could start at any time.
From the ’60s to ’70s, though, the Arms Race de-escalated,
and while both superpowers did still despise each other,
their focus turned more to the Space Race and advances in science and technology.
But in the 1980s, with the election of President Ronald Reagan, tensions between the US and the Russians grew.
Needless to say, from those I’ve talked to about living in the ’80s, it was a scary time.
It seemed as though both sides had their fingers hovering over the button and could press it at any second.
Not that that’s relevant to today’s world or anything!
Ha-ha-ha…
[Fake laughing turns into crying]
This was the same era where we got other songs talking about people’s fears of nuclear war,
like “Sign o’ the Times,” “Hammer to Fall,” and “Land of Confusion.”
Ah, I could use another one of those.
Ah, that’s one heck of a nurse!
And this song takes that fear and has fun with it,
with each verse making very clever wordplay that, in my opinion, exemplifies just what makes Weird Al such a comedy genius.
And he sounds so… cheerful when singing about all these horrible things!
Heh, get it? Because it’s “mistletoe,” like the thing people kiss under, but it’s also a pun about, y’know, nuclear missiles?
I don’t know, I thought that was funny.
See, the difference between this song and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”
is that the latter song is just a funny title and nothing more.
It doesn’t really do much with its concept, and what it DOES just comes off as disturbing,
showing that the family doesn’t care about the grandma after Santa’s vehicular homicide.
Meanwhile, listen to “Christmas at Ground Zero.”
Nearly every lyric skillfully mixes Christmas and winter traditions with cryptic imagery of the impending mutual annihilation
in a way that goes from being funny, to being dark, and then back to being funny again.
It also makes for a nice political song.
Al is basically singing about the stupidity of the Cold War and how nuclear weapons will bring about the end of humanity.
And if you think I’m overanalyzing it…
Well, the big day is only a few hours away now.
I’m sure you’re looking forward to it as much as we are.
I didn’t edit that in!
Al actually used a clip of Ronald Reagan in his song about the nuclear apocalypse!
His intentions were clear!
Sadly, after 9/11, the mainstream media started using “Ground Zero” to refer to the site that formerly held the World Trade Center,
and Al had to stop performing the song for fear of coming off as insensitive.
Thankfully, he had another Christmas song up his sleeve.
♫ Down in the workshop, all the elves were making toys
For the good gentile girls and the good gentile boys ♫
“The Night Santa Went Crazy” was released on the album Bad Hair Day in 1996…
Wow, this song is almost as old as I am.
Anyway, the song starts off with a pretty standard opening for a Christmas song.
It’s Christmas Eve and the elves are making toys until Santa busts in with a rifle.
Now, imagine this from my perspective.
I first heard this song when I was going through my Weird Al phase,
which was simultaneously when I first started to discover how overrated Christmas was.
So, most Christmas songs had lost their charm to me by that point.
But a song about Santa himself killing Christmas?
Now THAT’S what I call getting into the holiday spirit!
And I do mean it when I say that he KILLS Christmas in this song.
It’s not like in The Grinch, where he just steals the tree and the toys, but Christmas goes on anyway.
No, Santa goes hardcore in this song.
This song goes into detail when describing the increasingly gruesome and hilarious ways in which Santa axes off his reindeer.
In fact, is it wrong that I sometimes find myself cheering for Santa in this thing?
With the creative ways in which he murders all his reindeer, I can’t imagine that he’s not having some kind of fun with this.
I’m more just surprised that he didn’t keep some of his reindeer alive,
so he could, I don’t know, drop bombs down greedy kids’ chimneys or something.
Though, minor nitpick: “Blitzen” in no way, shape, or form rhymes with “chicken,”
and from what I understand, deer meat actually tastes more like beef.
And don’t forget to throw in a catchy chorus!
Actually, I never thought about it before, but this song has another layer to it.
In a way, “The Night Santa Went Crazy” is also playing to people’s fears, much like “Christmas at Ground Zero.”
In the ’90s, workplace shootings started becoming increasingly common,
and this song juxtaposes Christmas imagery with descriptions of the grim but contemporary phenomenon
in the same way that “Christmas at Ground Zero” does.
This is even played with in this line.
Now guess where a lot of workplace shootings took place during the late ’80s and early ’90s.
That’s right, post offices!
It’s very dark humor, yes, but honestly, I like it a lot!
Again, take this as a lesson, Elmo and Patsy: this is how you do a black comedy Christmas song right.
Sadly, the ending of this song is… kind of weak.
Not the ending in general, mind you. It actually gets pretty exciting.
The National Guard and the FBI show up…
Though I honestly don’t know if this is in their jurisdiction.
I mean, is the North Pole even owned by the US?
And things slowly go back to normal.
Vixen and Donner are still alive, though traumatized.
As previously stated, the elves are working for the postal service, and Mrs. Claus is now negotiating for the movie rights.
Really, HERE’S the strange part.
Maybe it’s just me and my strange desire to see Christmas be killed for good,
but leaving Santa alive at the end seems like a bit of a letdown for an ending of a song like this.
At least in Silent Night, Deadly Night, “Santa” actually died at the end.
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this ending, but I just kind of think that it needs something.
Something… gorier.
[giddily] Oh, yes!
Did I mention that there are TWO versions of this song?
There’s the original version of the song, and then there’s this alternate version that they perform live, called the “Extra Gory Version.”
And its ending is SO much more violent than the original, and thus, much more hilarious!
Yeah, so while the original is great, if you want unbridled violence, check out the Extra Gory Version.
Now THAT’S the kind of ending that I like!
Good god, I may be messed up.
But yeah, these two songs are both hilarious, instrumentally well-written, and provide surprisingly good commentary.
If you haven’t listened to them, I highly suggest checking them out, though listener discretion is highly advised.
Now, as a lot of people have already talked about including myself, in 2016, we lost a lot of great voices in music.
David Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Otis Clay, Maurice White, Phife Dawg, George Michael…
2016 was not a good year for music.
However, two of the deaths that hit me the hardest were of keyboardist Keith Emerson and bassist/singer Greg Lake,
both from the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Now this band had a lot of great songs, and the next song I’ll be talking about isn’t even in my top ten best ELP songs…
But it’s their only Christmas song, so I’ll take what I can get.
Actually, I don’t know if it’s really fair to call it an ELP song.
Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer barely play on this song. This is pretty much ALL Greg Lake
I’d call it his own solo song in the same way that “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”
is more of a Billie Joe Armstrong solo song than a proper Green Day song.
Either way, this song was very popular.
It made it to #2 on the single charts in 1976,
only kept off the #1 spot by a little song called “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
♫ Look up to the skies and see ♫
That’s right, it was only stopped from becoming a #1 hit by one of the greatest songs of all time.
And ever since then, “I Believe in Father Christmas” has been covered by many artists
and has become a Christmas staple on many radio stations.
That said, though…
It’s written by the lead singer of King Crimson, so it’s not going to be a straightforward Christmas song.
First of all, the instrumentation in this song is incredible.
It starts off with simple acoustic guitar and vocals before, one by one, adding synths, percussion,
brass, timpani, and a friggin’ choir and orchestra!
The way this song just increases in volume and intensity makes it sound very important.
I don’t even think Greg is still playing by the end!
He’s just let the orchestra take over!
And we haven’t even gotten to the lyrics yet.
This song doesn’t just SOUND important, it IS important.
“I Believe in Father Christmas” tackles many themes in its lyrics.
The first is the loss of innocence.
Lake first describes an idealistic vision of Christmas and the winter season in general.
The typical version of Christmas that everyone claims they believe in during the holiday season,
the one sold on Hallmark cards and stuff.
Hell, he even uses the word “sold” in the lyrics.
But the tone of this song takes a big change halfway through the second verse.
Now, there are two ways of interpreting this.
There’s the literal interpretation of him as a boy first discovering that Santa, or “Father Christmas” as they call him in the UK,
was a myth and is just used by parents to encourage good behavior.
But one can also see it as Greg seeing through Christmas in general.
When you’re a kid and you first grow out of thinking that Christmas is this super magical time of the year where everyone is happy
and see it for what it’s become, it can be disheartening.
See, believe it or not, I actually used to like Christmas.
Quite a lot, in fact.
But then I saw how it had become so overhyped and overmarketed
to the point where I was already hearing Christmas music on Halloween night,
and I kind of saw through its disguise myself.
In a way, the old, idyllic Christmas is dead.
It’s no longer all about peace and loving one another.
It’s now only about making as much money as possible by selling people stuff on big holiday deals,
about being brainwashed year after year to spend money on gifts for your family members,
and being convinced to hate anyone who doesn’t get you something on this holiday.
This is why you have people camping out overnight, freezing cold in Wal-Mart parking lots,
just so they can be in the store early enough to get that one thing that their cousin really wants,
even if it means violently shoving and trampling over anyone who gets in your way,
and even at the risk of the sanity of the already barely-paid workers there who, because of this,
often don’t get to spend time with their families.
It’s become a toxic environment, and I believe Greg recognizes this.
And I LOVE these ending lines.
Despite accusations of this song being anti-Christianity, Greg actually stated that he likes Christmas.
But you have to remember, Christmas was originally intended to celebrate the birth of Jesus,
who was noted for speaking many times about the evils of consumerism,
about the “Buy! Buy! Buy!” and “Sell! Sell! Sell!” mentalities,
so it makes me wonder what he would think seeing the day named in his honor turned into this capitalist crap.
The video also shows footage of the Vietnam War over the final instrumental segment,
and the contrast shows that even on a date explicitly about peace and love, acts of pure hatred like these can still happen.
In addition to being a great Christmas song, “I Believe in Father Christmas” also makes for a great protest song.
See, this is why I don’t give a free pass to “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” for being a protest song:
Greg Lake did it better!
♫ For [distorted] yellow and red ones ♫
Now, some of you are probably wondering: With how much I’ve praised this song, why is it only #2 on my list?
What could my #1 choice possibly be?
Well, those of you who know me well probably already have some idea about my #1 pick,
but before I get to that, here are some honorable mentions.
Okay, I mostly just like this because it’s Jethro Tull doing a Christmas song,
though I will say that I do like how this is another song asking to spare a thought for those who are poor on Christmas.
I recently re-watched the movie Beat Street, and I remembered how awesome this song was.
♫ So all I did was just put him away
‘Cause my G.I. Joe looked G.I. gay ♫
I have to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of rap, but come on.
You can’t help but love this, especially since it’s the first Christmas rap song most of us ever heard,
incidentally used in everyone’s favorite Christmas movie.
I know this is technically a New Year’s Day song, but dammit,
I really wanted to make up for putting two other Beatles Christmas songs on my worst list!
Yeah, don’t think too hard about that, guys.
Okay, I didn’t include this on the list because it’s a cover and I’m only including original songs,
but as far as covers of Christmas songs go, this is pretty good.
Unpopular opinion: I actually prefer the later Elvis,
when he was a baritone crooner rather than trying to be the king of rock,
and this song accurately captures the crappy feeling of being alone during the holidays.
Also, if you like “Blue Christmas” but aren’t particularly fond of Elvis, Collective Soul did a really nice re-working of it.
♫ And I’ll have a blue
Blue, blue, blue Christmas ♫
So, fun fact: Twisted Sister made a Christmas album.
Okay, I know that a lot of fans hated this album, but honestly, I didn’t mind it.
I mean, I never really thought of Twisted Sister as making SUPER serious music in the first place or anything,
so this doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.
Besides, Dee Snider went to Congress to defend freedom of expression.
I think he’s earned the right to make a Christmas album without losing any badassery.
Behold: the only Hanukkah song that anyone actually knows!
For the record, I would have put this on the list proper if it hadn’t been for that terribly unfunny Adam Sandler Hanukkah movie
that took its name from one of the lines in this song.
Wow, I actually had a lot more honorable mentions in this list than dishonorable mentions in the last one.
Okay, onto #1.
Now, from the other choices on my list, I might have come off like a bit of a music snob.
And I fear that some of you may be assuming that I only like Christmas songs if they are darkly humorous,
or feature epic instrumentation, or have a major slam against capitalism.
But no, alright? It doesn’t have to be all that.
Just like any other song, a Christmas song just has to be well-composed, have a sense of sincerity, not have any wack lyrics,
and be delivered by someone with a good singing voice and a great personality.
Hi, I’m Billy Squier.
Hi, Billy.
On behalf of myself and everyone here at MTV, I’d like to wish you all a happy holiday season and a terrific New Year.
Aw, thanks, Billy!
You seem nice. I hope your career is long and plentiful.
♫ Christmas is the time to say “I love you” ♫
♫ Share the joy and laughter and the cheer ♫
♫ Christmas is the time to say “I love you” ♫
♫ And a feeling that will last all through the year ♫
Anyone else remember this song? This was made when Billy Squier ruled the world.
He started off as the frontman of rock band Piper before moving onto a highly successful solo career
that scored him several Billboard hits, most notably “The Stroke” in 1981.
Sadly, he wasn’t always popular for GOOD reasons…
♫ [Billy Squier – “Rock Me Tonite”] ♫
Yeah, the “Rock Me Tonite” video basically killed his career in the ’80s,
which is a shame because he legit had a lot of talent and potential.
Thankfully, he has had sort of a career resurrection in recent years,
as he’s become one of the most highly sampled artists in music history
and even joined as a member of… wait for it…
…Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band!
Man, why do the Beatles keep popping up in these videos? That’s gotta be weird, right?
However, of all Squier’s songs, my absolute favorite has to be “Christmas Is the Time to Say ‘I Love You.’”
Its instrumentation is simple, its lyrics are straightforward, and it clocks in at just over two minutes,
yet there is a strange charm to it that few other songs are able to capture around the holiday season.
Let’s start by looking at that title.
“Christmas Is the Time to Say ‘I Love You.’”
Now, who CAN’T get behind a sentiment like that?
Nothing about religion or rampant commercialism or anything like that.
Just spreading the love.
None of the more annoying aspects of Christmas.
Okay, so it DOES mention carolers, but I’m going to be optimistic and assume that they’re only singing the songs on this list.
And okay, you COULD see this as a reference to the more commercial aspects of Christmas,
but I prefer to think of it as more referring to the sweet, if not naïve, sense of innocence that many children have on this holiday,
and how for one day, many people feel the same way.
Now this is an interesting line right there.
Our lives can get really stressful.
Whether our problems are based on relationship drama, financial struggles, or whatever else,
it can sometimes be really easy to think that life is nothing but the bad things
and really easy to forget about the good parts of it.
And that’s what Christmas is for a lot of people: the day when we can put aside all that and focus on the good things.
This feeling is why so many people who aren’t necessary religious liked Christmas to begin with,
a feeling that literally caused war to end for one day.
That really happened, by the way. Look it up
Well, at least HE knows the difference between Christmas and New Year’s.
Looking at you, John Lennon.
Okay, in all seriousness, I do really love this song.
It basically represents the nice, peaceful feeling that we all should feel in the holiday season.
In a way it’s almost kind of the antithesis to “I Believe in Father Christmas.”
That song is basically a eulogy to the peaceful architype of Christmas,
where it was all about spreading love, being kind, just sitting by the fire and enjoying life.
Meanwhile, “Christmas Is the Time to Say ‘I Love You’” is the anthem to that type of Christmas.
It’s a song that shouts, “No, the true spirit of Christmas is not dead! It’s still alive and you just have to believe in it!”
Now, some of you may think I’m reading too closely into this.
That it’s just a Christmas song that the record company probably required him to sing to make money for the holiday season.
But, well, think about it this way.
Squier himself holds the sole writing credit on this song.
It wasn’t just fed for him to sing from a record executive.
And this song wasn’t some last-ditch effort to make Billy Squier relevant again after the “Rock Me Tonite” video bombed so hard.
No, this was released in 1981, the same year as Squier’s big hit album Don’t Say No.
If the record company really wanted him to make this, they would promote it as much as possible.
But you want to know how Squier released this?
As a B-side.
Seriously, this song wasn’t on the album itself. It was just the B-side to “My Kinda Lover.”
It gives me the sense that Squier actually believes what he’s singing here.
I mean, it’s so happy and he sings it with such a passion that I can’t really believe anything else.
And some of the VJs and MTV staff at this video shoot have also said that him performing the song with them
was among their favorite moments on the channel.
And, y’know, it only makes sense that this song would make people feel so happy.
As I said before, I’m not religious and I’m usually not a fan of the holiday season,
but every time I hear this song, I can’t help but feel happy.
It just makes me smile.
Hell, there was one time when I called this in as a request to a radio station.
It was a local classic rock station, in fact, and I called it in as a request and dedicated it to my girlfriend at the time.
She’s broken up with me since then, and y’know,
when you lose someone, often times it makes songs that are associated with them harder to listen to,
but not with this song, man.
It just makes me happy.
That’s the power of this song.
In fact, it… almost makes me want to spread the cheer to some of the people I love in my life.
Hold on one sec.
Mom? Dad?
I love you!
-I love you!
-I love you, too!
Who was that?
I don’t know, I though you knew him.
I dedicate this video to all the people I love in my life.
That includes you!
You, person out there, watching this right now!
If you like this video, good for you! I love you!
If you hate this video, good for you! I still love you!
Go ahead, type your mean comment in the comments; I don’t care! I love you!
To all my subscribers, I love you!
I love you! I love all of you!
It’s almost been ten years since I joined YouTube and you have no idea how much you have gotten me through all these years.
Hey, Cartoon Physicist? I love you!
Magnetrex, I love you too!
Whoa! Hey, man!
I’m flattered and all, but, uh, to be honest with you, I don’t really swing like that.
Kitty, I love you!
No, seriously, you’re so cute!
What more needs to be said? It’s a great, cheerful song that easily tops my list.
♫ Then you know that Christmas time is here ♫
[from the “Land of Confusion” video]
Ah, that’s one heck of a nurse!
