Advent of Holiday Horror: Song 4
As we’ve noted a few times during this advent countdown, some songs are intrinsically bad while some have badness thrust upon them, all willy-nilly, by someone recording them who really, really shouldn’t. Bruce Springsteen’s hit “Fire” is not a funny song, and yet I smile every time I hear it – because in my head, I’m not hearing The Boss, I’m hearing Robin Williams doing his impression of Elmer Fudd covering The Boss. (“I’m dwivin’ in my caaa / tuun up da way-dee-oh” – and if I’ve done you no other favors in this entire Advent Countdown of Holiday Horror, I’ve provided you with this link. If Elmer Fudd doing Springsteen doesn’t crack you up, check your pulse.)
And so we see that a good song can be made funny with a funny cover. Unfortunately, most songs don’t get this treatment from their covers. Some, sure, and some are Ronstadted, which is simply OK, and some are actually Claptoned! (He didn’t write After Midnight, after all. He just did it better.) But some of them get Biebered.
Hearing a good song getting Biebered is hard for us all. But it’s not the worst thing that can happen to a song.
Sometimes, they get downright Hasselhoffed.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht? Heilige Scheiße! Nein danke.
Silent Night is a beautiful song. It’s beautiful in German. It’s beautiful in English. It would be beautiful sung in the click/pop language of the Omuramba Ovambo tribes in the Kalahari.
But not if if were the Hoff doing the clicking. He would somehow manage to convey his own sense of unctuous, hair-gelled smarm into the pops and clicks, and it would go from something beautiful to something that used to be beautiful before it was laminated, decked out with appliqué, b-jeweled, and vajazzled. It’s not pretty any more. It doesn’t sound like Silent Night so much as just make me wish for one.
Go on, you haven’t had your dose of punishment today. Click it. Click it and suffer.
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