A Christmas Carol

歌詞

An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer: One very familiar type of song is the Christmas carol. Although it is perhaps a bit out of season at this time. However, I'm informed by my disk jockey friends – of whom I have none – that in order to get a song popular by Christmas Time, you have to start plugging it well in advance. So here Goes. It has always seemed to me after all, that Christmas, With its spirit of giving, offers us all a wonderful opportunity Each year to reflect on what we all most sincerely and deeply Believe in – I refer of course, to money. And yet none of the Christmas carols that you hear on the radio or in the street, Even attempt to capture the true spirit of Christmas as we Celebrate it in the United States, that is to say the commercial Spirit. So I should like to offer the following Christmas carol For next year, as being perhaps a bit more appropriate. Christmas time is here, by golly Disapproval would be folly Deck the halls with hunks of holly Fill the cup and don't say when Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens Even though the prospect sickens Brother, here we go again On Christmas Day you can't get sore Your fellow man you must adore There's time to rob him all the more The other three hundred and sixty-four Relations, sparing no expense, 'll Send some useless old utensil Or a matching pen and pencil ("Just the thing I need, how nice!") It doesn't matter how sincere it is Nor how heart felt the spirit Sentiment will not endear it What's important is the price Hark, the Herald Tribune sings Advertising wondrous things God rest ye merry merchants May ye make the Yuletide pay Angels we have heard on high Tell us to go out and – buy! So let the raucous sleighbells jingle Hail our dear old friend Kriss Kringle Driving his reindeer across the sky Don't stand underneath when they fly by (spoken) Actually I did rather well myself, this last Christmas. The nicest present I received was a gift certificate "Good at any hospital for a lobotomy"... rather thoughtful.