Holly ([info]several_bees) wrote,
@ 2006-12-10 14:06:00
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O Christmas Kudzu
A little while ago, [info]offensive_mango pointed to some delightful Humanist Christmas Carols. Silent Night is replaced with Be a Bright, The First Noel with There Is No Hell, the faithful are urged to come from Bethlehem and "ignore him", while, perhaps most charmingly, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen becomes
The World of Richard Dawkins
Is a place where you will find
A scientific plethora
To stimulate your mind.
Expand your intellectual side;
Leave ignorance behind.
O, tidings of knowledge and truth,
Knowledge and truth.
O, tidings of knowledge and truth.
We atheists will have no truck with comfort and joy, though apparently we will have truck with personifying pine trees and then settling our consciences by instead buying fakes made from non-renewable fossil fuels which used to be, er, dead trees:
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
How murderous and wasteful
To end your life so carelessly,
So thoughtless and distasteful.
[...]
I'll work for change, I promise thee,
For only Man can save a tree.
Long life to thee, O Christmas Tree,
I'm buying "artificial."
Revising lyrics to make them more scientific isn't a new idea. Babbage famously wrote to Tennyson complaining about the line "Every minute dies a man, every minute one is born":
If this were true the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death. I would suggest "Every moment dies a man, every moment 1 1/16 is born." Strictly speaking the actual figure is so long I cannot get it into a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.
Furthermore, Christmas songs have notoriously fickle lyrics. Hark! the herald angels sing began as Hark! how all the welkin rings. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas originally opened "Have yourself a merry little Christmas; it may be your last" before being revised to its familiar form, and eventually to "Have Yourself A Blessed Little Christmas".

Since people are so keen to rewrite Christmas songs, then, I present my Christmas Song Generator, whose usefulness is rivalled only by the shoddiness of its decorative holly. At the press of a button, you can make carols appropriate for atheists:
Bring me flesh, and bring me Richard Dawkins,
Bring me pine logs hither.
You can make secular songs appropriate for Christians:
Rudolph the red-nosed angel
Had a very shiny nose.
And you can make everything appropriate for me:
And so this is Xmas,
I hope you have bees.



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[info]fluffymark
2006-12-10 01:33 pm UTC (link)
Not entirely sure about this christmas song:

Away in a manger;
No lesbians for a bed


Nor this one:

There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time,
The greatest gift they'll get this year is lesbians


And this is just disturbing:

Shall I play for you,
Pa-rum-pum-pum pum,
On my lesbians


And this one:

He knows if you've been bad or lesbians,
So be lesbians for goodness' sake


And this one explains a lot:

Hark, the herald angels sing,
Christ is born in Lesbians>


Um. Maybe I should have used a different word?

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[info]several_bees
2006-12-10 01:43 pm UTC (link)
I suspect that depends on where you intend to sing them.

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[info]human_loser
2006-12-10 04:02 pm UTC (link)
All I wanted for Christmas was one of your awesome posts, so thank you!

Here are some of my favourites:

I'm dreaming of a white Capitalist Pig Dog,
Just like the ones we used to know.

So here it is, merry Christmas,
Everybody's having fun.
Look to the howling emptiness now,
It's only just begun.

Here comes Howling Emptiness! Here comes Howling Emptiness! Right down Howling Emptiness Lane!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
You give us so much gunfire.

Come and behold him,
Born the king of rednecks.

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[info]several_bees
2006-12-10 08:26 pm UTC (link)
I fear your sense of humour is more sophisticated than mine; I was most amused by "bottom" and "squirrel".

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[info]human_loser
2006-12-10 09:14 pm UTC (link)
nah, in humor "sophisticated" is often just another way of saying "not funny". "sophisticated looks better on my author's bio, though.

:P

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[info]thewronghands
2006-12-10 07:51 pm UTC (link)
With true love and lesbian ninja pirate
Each other now embrace.

(I had to try three or four times to get that one, but still, ha.

The humanist carols could be funny, but most of the ones I looked at seem a bit uninspired in execution, which is rather a pity, and even preachier than the Christmas versions but without the cleverness to pull it off.

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[info]several_bees
2006-12-10 08:03 pm UTC (link)
Come, they told me,
Pa-rum-pum-pum pum,
Me and my lesbian ninja pirate

would have turned up eventually as well, but that's about as lewd as they get.

I think the humanist carols are very funny, but only because they're so earnestly awful.

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[info]nja
2006-12-10 08:43 pm UTC (link)
Refusal to accept the fact of evolution's plan,

Plan? Teleological heresy!

I never knew Dawkins was a palaeontologist, either.

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[info]several_bees
2006-12-11 01:08 pm UTC (link)
Mm. I'd make more allowances for being nonsensical in order to scan if they, well, actually did scan.

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[info]joranj
2006-12-11 10:02 am UTC (link)
O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless giant squid
The silent stars go by.


This has made me very happy.

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