12 Days of Chipmunks: “O Christmastime (Greensleeves)”
DECEMBER TENTH: SPITE
Anyone familiar with Christmas with the Chipmunks can tell you that “Christmas Time (Greensleeves)” is, without a doubt, the worst track on the album. It’s agonizingly slow, the harmonies are stale and familiar, and none of the Chipmunks sound like they even enjoy singing it. Most people assume that at this point, Bagdasarian simply began running out of ideas. And who could blame them?
Me, of course.
How could anyone who calls themselves a fan of Ross Bagdasarian Sr. possibly think he could “run out of ideas”? The very idea is preposterous. Does a grizzly bear “run out of ideas” and stop hunting salmon? Does the mighty redwood “run out of ideas” and drop dead in the middle of the Oregonian forest? Do I run out of ideas and stop writing articles for 2 days? Of course not. Bagdasarian had a plan. And I was in jail.
Some of you may be familiar with the Hensey Act of 1954. I won’t rewrite it here in its entirety, but it is an act passed by the United States Federal Regulatory Commission (USFRC, or FRC for short) that regulates the content of Christmas albums. Some more famous laws introduced in the Hensey act are the “Jingle Bell Inclusitory”…
Sec. 25. No fewer than one song per Christmas album must end with a piano playing the opening lines to “Jingle Bells” slowly on the high keys.
…And the “Guilt Trip Law”.
Sec. 14: Each Christmas album must include no fewer than one song that makes you feel bad for wanting presents on Christmas because of materialism and/or war.
Ross Bagdasarian Sr. was, of course, an outspoken activist against government control and censorship of art. “O Christmastime (Greensleeves)” was included in protest against the Hensey act—in particular, the “Non-Secular Committory”.
Sec. 259: Each Christmas album must include no fewer than one “traditional” Christmas carol, having been written before the year 1850.
Other rebellious musicians would simply omit the traditional song to “stick it” to the FRC. But Bagdasarian did include a traditional carol in Christmas with the Chipmunks. In a stroke of classic Bagdasarian genius, though, he made it sound like it had been slapped together at the last minute. In fact, if you listen carefully, the whole song sounds like a group of unenthused children singing a song they hate for relatives they rarely see, under threat of not receiving presents from their angry parents. Picture the Chipmunks singing the song while constantly rolling their eyes and crossing their arms and it makes perfect sense that the song sounds as trite and soulless as it does. Ross Bagdasarian Sr. was showing us what would happen if the government continued implementing laws like the Hensey Act: a grim, dystopian future in which all music is produced by the dead-eyed proletariat for the sake of entertaining an all-powerful bourgeoisie oligarchy and its ludicrous demands. And by using “O Christmastime (Greensleeves)” to do it, he was perfectly within his legal rights. He exposed the true face of the Federal Regulatory Commission to the public, and there was nothing the FRC could do about it. He played the game by their rules, and he won.
