So how weird is the decade becoming?
In the way of kiddies’ yule, Line Materials delivers their employee Christmas bonus for 1956: a special vinyl song concoction entitled “The Magic of Christmas.” Santa sounds drunk, the toys seem to come to life–not in a nice way, and all the singers here are so tired i feel guilty that i was ever a child.
Commercialization has created bigger and bigger shopping centers. In Edina, MN “Southdale for Christmas” tells us through radio air play jingle what a wonderful life you’ll have buying stuff. Ching a ling sing the mad men.
The Elvis craze has replaced the Eddie Fisher craze finally. So now we have Eddie Cochran & The Holly Twins with “I Want Elvis for Christmas” dueling with the more polished rockabilly version by Marlene Paul this year “I Wanna Spend Christmas with Elvis.” Which is creepier? Don’t be so millennial, dude! Fans don’t stalk in 1956!
But the descendent of vaudeville comedy oddness, the non sequitur nonsense television show, ripens to a rich vintage this year. On our side we have Erie Kovacs. But as he left us no great novelty Christmas tune, i will reach across the pond to Spike Milligan and The Goons. So, here it is, the Dadaism of the 1950s: “I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas.” Try to make sense of it and we will laugh at you.