Grow Up! - An Obamafied American Idol Christmas.

National Review ^ | Mark Steyn

[Sub-Driver]

Grow Up! An Obamafied American Idol Christmas.

By Mark Steyn

I was at the mall two days before Christmas, and it was strangely quiet. So quiet that, sadly, I was able to hear every word of Kelly Clarkson bellowing over the sound system “My Grown-Up Christmas List.” Don’t get me wrong — I love seasonal songs. “Winter Wonderland” — I dig it. “Rudolph” — man, he’s cool, albeit not as literally as Frosty. But “Grown-Up Christmas List” is one of those overwrought ballads of melismatic bombast made for the American Idol crowd. It’s all about how the singer now eschews asking Santa for materialist goodies — beribboned trinkets and gaudy novelties — in favor of selfless grown-up stuff like world peace.

Which is an odd sentiment to hear at a shopping mall.

But it seems to have done the trick. “Retail Sales Plummet,” read the Christmas headline in the Wall Street Journal. “Sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending.”

Hey, that’s great news, isn’t it? After all, everyone knows Americans consume too much. What was it that then Senator Obama said on the subject? “We can’t just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert and keep consuming 25 percent of the world’s resources with just 4 percent of the world’s population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead, we’ll be fine.”

[Sub-Driver]

touche......!

[nuconvert]

I’m happy to say, I’ve never heard the song - and hope I never do

[DManA]

Every mall I went to this season has been packed wall to wall. Esp at the cash register.

[Gondring]

I’m happy to say, I’ve never heard the song - and hope I never do

Same here.

Good post, Sub-Driver.

[StAntKnee]

Another brilliant piece from a brilliant observer and writer of the time.

Yes, we can’t, folks. Oh, if only the O-voters would read Steyn.

[livius]

Great Steyn! He also identifies a particular feature of the Obamaphiles: passivity. The old American can-do attitude is just so passe. Now we have to wait for the enlightened masters, such as Barry or the government, to fix it all for us.

[Stepan12]

I’m happy to say, I’ve never heard the song - and hope I never do

Christmas songs? I recorded some off my midi cables and put them on my Underzog website: Here in the bottom half.

I had penpals in France and Germany and this is taken from the stuff I mailed to them.

[raybbr]

Bono and Pavarotti sing "Ave Maria"

Be warned. If you think Clarkson's lyrics were horrible you ain't seen nuthin' yet.

[HawaiianGecko]

Best article I've read in quite some time. All bubble brains want world peace.  Just watch any beauty contest.  You'd think that after thousands of years of people wanting world peace and not achieving said goal, they'd ask themselves why after doing the same thing over and over, not reaching the desired goal, they don't consider themselves clinically crazy.

[LiberConservative]

I think it's obscene that 0bama can preach to us about American excess while spending millions of dollars taking numerous vacations to Hawaii.

[nuconvert]

arrrgggh! ..... I couldn’t get passed the 30 second mark

[Malesherbes]

“melismatic” (I had to look it up) = singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession, common to Middle Eastern, African, and African-American music.

The road ahead = “no longer lives but husks of centrally controlled tyrannies.”

I read Steyn with wonder: how can one man be so prolific, so clever, so downright smart, and also be so consistently right.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Videos of “My Grown-Up Christmas List”

Kelly Clarkson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_L80avABPw&feature=related

Amy Grant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvuTHCLB3o0&feature=related

Lyrics:

Do you remember me
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you
With childhood fantasies

Well, I’m all grown up now
And still need help somehow
I’m not a child
But my heart still can dream

So here’s my lifelong wish
My grown up christmas list
Not for myself
But for a world in need

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal the heart
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end oh,
This is my grown up Christmas list

As children we believed
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely
Wrapped beneath the tree

But heaven only knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal
A hurting human soul

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
Oh, This is my grown up christmas list

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth
Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end, oh
This is my grown up christmas list
This is my only life long wish
This is my grown up christmas list

[Yogafist]

for later.

[Old North State]

My fervent Christmas wish is that peace would come to just one warring third-world shit hole, that would be great.