Consumer Mayham
What Jesus wants you to do,
Buy your friends sh!t they won't use,
To sit in closets until,
It gets dumped in a landfill,
To sit hundreds of years more,
That's how we reward our Lord,
Him born down in Bethlehem,
With consumer mayhem.
Show appreciation,
For your soul's salvation,
By driving to Tarmart,
And buying playstations,
Nothing says Nativity,
Like flat screen HDTVs,
He cried to Jerusalem,
Make consumer mayhem.
This is a jingle in which Jesus hawks products for a fictional superstore called TarMart. I originally wrote it to be sung by a lone male voice. Realizing while the song progressed that within the larger defamiliariation (of Jesus, almsgiving, poverty, Mary, Joseph and the Nativity being absorbed by our consumer society despite consumerism having interpersonal economic ancestors that Jesus preached against), other (specific and thematic) defamiliarizations could be evoked. Like a church choir singing not the familiar carols that we hear so often shopping in malls but a new carol celebrating what we're actually doing. Many carols we hear have antimaterialistic themes. The little drummer boy has "no gift to bring" but himself and his drum. The Good King Wenceslas song celebrates almsgiving of a king. Wenceslas is itself perhaps a defamiliarization of sorts. The song was written to an older tune that celebrates spring flowers with somewhat pagan undertones. In the Wenceslas carol the melody is recast to celebrate Christian almsgiving. In that sense the defamiliarization is of a Christian ideology suggesting contemplation about a familiarized paganesque celebration of spring (which had carried into the era of Christian dominated Europe) rather than a celebration of Christian piety in biting winter. Still, hundreds of millions of Americans hear this song in malls across the country during the holiday season, and (so familiarized are we to its association with shopping) hum along while continuing to do exactly what its lyrics deplore: spending on ourselves and loved ones rather than those in need. Symbolically, Americans are celebrating the harvest of money via our shopping. The song, however, rejects the fall harvest implicitly promised via the spring flowers of the traditional version, instead looking to a transcendence of material comforts (let alone success) towards a meaningful life. (I don't pretend I'm not influenced by the same materialistic pressures or that I never go shopping, but I do think the materialistic frenzy has hit heights worthy of reflection.)
So I wrote the carol to the tune the King Wenceslas carol usurped from the older folk song. The digital instrument I chose to back them up with was based on what I think many Americans associate with Christmas hymns: the pipe organ. For the percussion I used jingling bells, the triangle, and church bells recut to match the beat of the song, instruments I thought would resonate as ones conventionally used in Christmas carols heard in malls. This was important to me because I didn't want the song to ring too churchlike. My initial thought (using voices only, without music, as door to door carolers would) and second thought (using only organs, like church hymns) would keep this song's music thematically out of the malls. I wanted to draw associations of the song into the malls. While there is much overlap in the people engaging in consumer excess and the people who go to church, it is not in church that most are at their most materially excessive. Likewise, caroling is not necessarily (or even generally) a materially excessive exercise. The song is too close to the antimaterialistic themes often explicit in church and almost always implicit in caroling for me to have felt good about calling my project defamiliarization when purely in those musical traditions. Hence, the Christmas mallsong percussion: to thematically bring the song into the malls and (in my opinion) into the realm of defamiliarization for both myself as an American consumer (who is reflecting on and reconsidering my own consumerism) and others who watch the video.
Other Video Tags: consumerism song mall jingle Occupy Wall Street pipe organ Santa Clause George Albert Smith 1898 St. Nick materialism materialistic shallow consumerism capitalism resource based economy "Christmas music" Christmastime "holiday songs" "holiday song" anticonsumerism nonmaterialistic Christianity tune "Caru Cadoc" Pseudosufis protest music "Christmas satire" "consumerism satire" "Chrismas carol satire" Christmas carol satire counter culture satirical sarcasm sarcastic "shopping music" "shopping mall music" "shopping mall" "in store music" "music video" "music 2012" "music videos 2012" "indie music" counterculture "music that makes you laugh" "shopping all songs" shopping mall music "satire commercials" satire comedy fake commercial comical commercial comedy video sarcasm irony political social criticism consumer criticism consumerism
Loading...
2:01
Ode To Christmas - Chuck Kramerby BikeManDan14,903 views
The video's description is more interesting than the video. Hypocritical Christmas consumerism is hardly an unexplored country. Although I will give you points for TAROmart--that's good. If I made something like this I'd have a pissed off Jesus and Santa in the mall (temple) with flame throwers, torching the stores (throwing out the money changers). But that might require a bit more of a budget. The fact that you bothered to make this at all puts you one up on me. Make more if you can.
TheForwardGaze 3 months ago
bwahahahaha. Hare Krmmus....
daBlackBaron13 3 months ago
this is hilarious!
revbookburn 3 months ago
nice
GuFriendTao 3 months ago
Reminds me of Joe Cable.
sanclementekid 3 months ago
What?!?! Don't you think Jesus cares about the ECONOMY?!?! This is great. Thanks.
nauort23 3 months ago
:3 awesome!
DrayaCrimson24 3 months ago
^_^
AnuckSunamU 3 months ago
sooo funny!
reyty2 3 months ago
ahahah' good stuff
thumbs up *****
FreeNeverSaid 3 months ago