Last Saturday I went carol singing with the Slackers choir. We sing Christmas carols with the lyrics changed to critique the consumerist angle of Christmas. Here’s some of the lyrics:
Oh gentle folk of London Town
Think how they feed us lies
All through the streets the shops compete
Urging us to buy and buy
Whilst elsewhere explodeth
Another bomb tonight
As innocents fall
Were in the shopping mall
This doesn’t quite seem right.
Spend all our cash, we’re feeling flash
As the queues continue to grow
Buying luxury goods and loads of food
for folks we hardly know
Whilst in so many places
The people starve and die
As I carve my bird
It’s quite absurd
that we buy into this lie
Then at new year the sales appear
And everything’s reduced
In store we see new product lines
And know that we’ve been duped
We wish that we had waited
Until now to buy
The model’s been updated
It makes us want to cry.
To the tune of Once in Royal David’s City
Once in dirty London City
Stood a huge big fuck off shop
Where they sold their goods aplenty
And the shopping did not stop
Branded bags all overflowing
All their savings quickly going
Thus consumerism wild
Yule’s cheer message has defiled
Thus consumerism wild
Yule’s cheer message has defiled
Silent night holy night
Bombs go boom,Soldiers fight
Round the stores the suckers trawl
Buying crap for one and all
Shop until you drop
Shop until you drop
To the tune of Oh Come All Ye Faithful
Oh come all ye shoppers
Burdened and despondent
Come all ye followers of ma-a-mon
Come and buy things
Sparkly and redundant
Oh come let us ignore it
Oh come let us deplore it
Oh come let us abhor it
Money and greed.
Ring tills with profit
Ring in exploitation
Ring all ye registers of capitalism
Glory to profit
At it’s highest
Oh come let us ignore it
Oh come let us deplore it
Oh come let us abhor it
Money and greed.
A pittance for pay
Work under age children
With no time to play
Making trainers and T-shirts
And luxury goods
Threatened with violence
And given no food
The stars in the media
Encourage our greed
Making us want things we don’t really need
Wasting resources
And coercing our brains
Using up carbon with little to gain.
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