Customer Reviews

Bummed Out Christmas

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my all time favorite Christmas CD... I first bought this in '89 and it has gotten me through MANY truly awful Christmases. It never fails to make me smile.

This is an adult CD, not because of language, but because of content. "Santa Came Home Drink", "Santa Got a DWI", and "Christmas in Jail" all deal with drinking and "Who Say There Ain't No Santa Claus" is about a murderer on death row (but it is very tounge-in-cheek).

So, if you are looking for a CD that acknowledges that Christmas isn't all sweetness and light buy this CD, break out the eggnog and remember - Santa won't be back next Christmas Eve.

I bought this CD as a gag-gift. It came unwrapped so I listned to it and it was one of the best comps ever. I kept it. What genius put these songs together?

This compilation album focuses on the unhappy side of Christmas. The songs tackle the subject in a variety of styles and with varying degrees of seriousness. For instance, the first song, "Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit", is a jug band song and it's played for laughs. While the second song, "Christmas Eve Can Kill You", is played seriously and is about the saddest Christmas song I ever heard. Both songs are great, however. In fact, there are a lot of great songs here. The only song I hate is "Santa Came Home Drunk", which is a slurred blues song that is basically an excuse for the singer to slip the names of as many brands of whiskey as possible into the lyrics. Anyway, if you are looking for a different kind of Christmas album, this may be for you.

Feel like Fred Sanford in a Kathy Lee world? Does your family's picture appear in the dictionary next to the word dysfunctional? Then this is the Christmas album for you. I'm ordering the CD today because I wore the cassette tape out. Warning: Adults only - so much drinking by Santa it inspires listeners to mix up a few cocktails for themselves. Hey, guess I'll go do that myself...

The people at Rhino Records have put together some great collections over the years, and you can count this one among them. They always seen to find songs that you just can't get anywhere else. I bought this just for one song, the 50's doo-wop "Christmas In Jail" by The Youngsters, but I ended up liking almost the entire disc. The songs range from the 50's to the 80's and cover all sorts of musical styles tied together by the common theme of a less-than-merry Christmas. The only clunker is the hokey "Santa Got A DWI". Just ignore that one and enjoy the rest of the great songs here. In addition to "Christmas in Jail", there is also a zydeco version of John Prine's "Chistmas in Prison". There are two smokin' garage-rock songs from 1966 by two bands from Tacoma, WA; "Don't Believe In Christmas" by the Sonics, and "Christmas Spirit??" by the Wailers (not the reggae band). The Everly Brothers "Christmas Eve Can Kill You" may be sad, but it sure is pretty. And The Staple Singers' gospel song "Who Took The Merry Out of Christmas?" is done so well, they make it seem uplifting. The disc may be called "Bummed Out Christmas", but you'll be glad to own it.

This is probably THE best collection to whip out at those overheated Christmas parties, the ones where everyone ends up slumped in chairs, too zoned to go home and too wired up to fall asleep. Just hearing Clyde Lasley's "Santa Came Home Drunk" is enough to snap people out of it. The best part is the girl-group trio singing in deadpan, "ooooooh...oooh-ooh-ooooooooh.... Santa's drunk again...." George Jones' "Lonely Christmas Call" is a class country tearjerker, sure to set all the cowboys within several zipcodes to crying into their eggnog. There's also a pretty solid Staple Singers tune on here that hits hard. Buy it just to lower the pH of all those Julie Andrews records.

THIS CD CAME WITH A CRACKED CASE BUT I WAS LOOKING FOR THE ONE SONG THAT WAS ON THE CD AND WAS HARD TO FIND SO I KEPT THE CD

Bought this as a cassette in 1989, after both New Kids On The Block and The Jets released their Christmas albums before Labor Day of 1989 (Yes, that happened!). Helped me through a number of ugly Christmases.

My favorites on this CD are:
Christmas Eve Can Kill You (about being alone)
Santa Came Home Drunk (love the way he fits the liquor names in)
Don't Believe in Christmas (A spoonful of cynicism makes the medicine go down...)
Santa Got a DWI (I like this song, don't know why so many others hate it)
Who Say There Ain't No Santa Claus (dig the punchline)
Christmas Spirit (the Xmas song Bob Dylan should have done but didn't)

"Bummed Out Christmas" is a collection of Christmas songs that are are considerably less cheerful or uplifting than the type of music usually associated with the holiday season. But these songs are not really all "bummers."

Some of the songs express the hope of optimism in spite of a minor problem, as in "Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit". Some others tell funny stories of holiday setbacks such as "Santa Came Home Drunk" and "Christmas in Jail". Still others are hauntingly beautiful and poignant, such as "Christmas Eve Can Kill You". And "Don't Believe in Christmas" is a rather catchy song of cynicism and disdain for Christmas.

There are two songs on this disc that merit special mention because they are so wretchedly awful. "Santa Got a DWI" is a rather stupid novelty tune about the jolly fat man being arrested for drunk driving in his sleigh. Sherwin Linton's vocal is so irritating that I wish the police would beat him with a rubber hose. "Lonely Christmas Call" is a godawful old George Jones number that is so depressing it will have rednecks and trailer park denizens everywhere crying in their beer.

Some of these songs will bum you out. Others will make you laugh. Still others will just annoy you with their stupidity. This is what you get in "Bummed Out Christmas".