Worse than coal, worse than punishment, worse than being singled out for negative reinforcement at Christmas… complete indifference. It’s like that Ally Sheedy line in The Breakfast Club: ‘They ignore me.’
When you don’t get ANY presents for Xmas, well–what? You just don’t know. Calendar’s wrong. Someone forgot. Address mix-up. Or, maybe you were just that bad.
“Nuttin’ for Christmas” is the 1955 chart toppin’ complaint about disapproval by omission. About half a dozen versions vied for position. You either know Art Mooney and His Orchestra (feat. Barry Gordon) from the tin hat wah wah brass, or Stan Freberg (with Daws Butler and the Billy Mays Orchestra) from the ‘join me in the chorus okay’ comic burglar bit. (We won’t worry about the others–well, maybe the it-sounds-like-the-chipmunks verzh by Kenny and Corky a la ’59.)
To make novel this old school novelty, let’s consider the washboard country of Sugarland (yee to the haw), the a cappella of Voice Male (updated lyrics: ‘spilled some oil in the Gulf’!), the pop punk of Plain White T’s (hyper meh), which i guess is the doorway to the heavy metal of the stable band from Regimental Records (no real surprises here), the funky gnarly blues of Scarlet Tree (à propos but surprisingly uplifting).
On the way to parody let’s also consider maestro Robert Lund’s “Nuttin’ But Spam” (not really Chrsitmas). Hey Co! has a delightful Prisoner Parody behind the karaoke of the Art Mooney music. Unlawful naughtiness fits, yeah it does.