Saturday, December 17, 2005
Another Martha Stewart Christmas
Last year in early December I wrote the first Christmas song I'd ever written. Like most of the stuff I do, it turned out far from traditional. I was inspired by a news story about Martha Stewart, at prison at some country club prison in West Virginia, entering some decorating contest and coming in second. It got me thinking about Martha and how that Christmas, serving time was different than any other Christmas she'd ever experienced. I thought how differnt it was from her Christmas special I'd seen on Food TV the previous year.
So I sat down and banged out a somewhat mean-spirited Christmas song, perhaps the first mean-spirited Christmas song ever written (then again, I wrote a sappy love song based on a pie chart). My only experience with prison life is stuff I've seen in movies like The Shawshank Redemption. So armed with those types of images and some knowledge of the stuff that Martha Stewart has made a fortune doing, I wrote a song.
I learned a couple of things about songwriting last year. First is if you write a Christmas song, don't make it specific to one year. A Martha Stewart Christmas was really only funny last year. Christmas songs are supposed to be for the ages, and that one obviously wasn't. The second this I learned was that if you do write a Christmas song that's only good for one year, write it before the first week of December so you can play it in front of people more than eight times.
So it seems that the second lesson didn't stick. I was working on another Christmas song this year but it never went anywhere. A number of people asked me last year if I'd be playing A Martha Stewart Christmas this year. It honestly hadn't occured to me as I thought it had passed its shelf life. But I started thinking that maybe I could update it some. My original idea was that her Christmas in prison was different than every other Christmas she'd ever had. But this years Christmas will be different for Martha too. It'll definitely be different than last year.
So armed with more images from prison movies, more specifically the bad late night women in prison movies on Cinemax, I wrote three more verses, dropped out the verse I never really liked from last year's incarnation, added a couple of choruses and I had a new (sort of) Christmas song. Classic? Hardly, but I think I was able to breath some new life into a song that I originally wrote to be played for only one season.
Another Martha Stewart Christmas
Snow falls lightly on the hills of West Virginia
And the season makes us all just want to give
So she’s smuggled in some pies
But her plans were left in a lurch
When that can of yams was found
During last night’s cell block search
Well it’s cold and damp and dank down in the cell block
Minimum security just ain’t no way to live
The color scheme’s all wrong
And the furniture’s no fun
And it’s hard to spruce things up
When they confiscate your hot glue gun
It’s a Martha Stewart Christmas
This year it’s different
Than the one I saw last year on Food TV
Right after Emeril
Screws don’t allow no shanks or knives in the cell block
So she had to carve the turkey with a shiv
She’d been saving up all year
And the feast just made her broke
‘cuz the non-dairy whipped topping
cost her last 3 packs of smokes
But now she’s out in time to enjoy this year’s Christmas
With friends and family instead of all the cons
So this year’s Jingle Bells
And this year’s Silent Night
Won’t be disturbed by the screams
Of another naked shower fight
…..Or Will They…..
It’s a Martha Stewart Christmas
This year it’s different
Than the one I saw last year at Two AM
On Cinemax
They all said her life would be different on the outside
No one ever gives a con an even break
Her investments are way down
Her magazine is just so-so
And since they cancelled The Apprentice
She’s only got one TV show
This year’s Christmas dinner had to be at Martha’s
Still on parole and under house arrest
Trapped in her home of thirty rooms
She can’t even go to town
If she strays to far the cops will know
They’ll mobilize and track her down
Another Martha Stewart Christmas
This year it’s different
Than the one she had last year at that resort
In West Virginia
BOJ
So I sat down and banged out a somewhat mean-spirited Christmas song, perhaps the first mean-spirited Christmas song ever written (then again, I wrote a sappy love song based on a pie chart). My only experience with prison life is stuff I've seen in movies like The Shawshank Redemption. So armed with those types of images and some knowledge of the stuff that Martha Stewart has made a fortune doing, I wrote a song.
I learned a couple of things about songwriting last year. First is if you write a Christmas song, don't make it specific to one year. A Martha Stewart Christmas was really only funny last year. Christmas songs are supposed to be for the ages, and that one obviously wasn't. The second this I learned was that if you do write a Christmas song that's only good for one year, write it before the first week of December so you can play it in front of people more than eight times.
So it seems that the second lesson didn't stick. I was working on another Christmas song this year but it never went anywhere. A number of people asked me last year if I'd be playing A Martha Stewart Christmas this year. It honestly hadn't occured to me as I thought it had passed its shelf life. But I started thinking that maybe I could update it some. My original idea was that her Christmas in prison was different than every other Christmas she'd ever had. But this years Christmas will be different for Martha too. It'll definitely be different than last year.
So armed with more images from prison movies, more specifically the bad late night women in prison movies on Cinemax, I wrote three more verses, dropped out the verse I never really liked from last year's incarnation, added a couple of choruses and I had a new (sort of) Christmas song. Classic? Hardly, but I think I was able to breath some new life into a song that I originally wrote to be played for only one season.
Snow falls lightly on the hills of West Virginia
And the season makes us all just want to give
So she’s smuggled in some pies
But her plans were left in a lurch
When that can of yams was found
During last night’s cell block search
Well it’s cold and damp and dank down in the cell block
Minimum security just ain’t no way to live
The color scheme’s all wrong
And the furniture’s no fun
And it’s hard to spruce things up
When they confiscate your hot glue gun
It’s a Martha Stewart Christmas
This year it’s different
Than the one I saw last year on Food TV
Right after Emeril
Screws don’t allow no shanks or knives in the cell block
So she had to carve the turkey with a shiv
She’d been saving up all year
And the feast just made her broke
‘cuz the non-dairy whipped topping
cost her last 3 packs of smokes
But now she’s out in time to enjoy this year’s Christmas
With friends and family instead of all the cons
So this year’s Jingle Bells
And this year’s Silent Night
Won’t be disturbed by the screams
Of another naked shower fight
…..Or Will They…..
It’s a Martha Stewart Christmas
This year it’s different
Than the one I saw last year at Two AM
On Cinemax
They all said her life would be different on the outside
No one ever gives a con an even break
Her investments are way down
Her magazine is just so-so
And since they cancelled The Apprentice
She’s only got one TV show
This year’s Christmas dinner had to be at Martha’s
Still on parole and under house arrest
Trapped in her home of thirty rooms
She can’t even go to town
If she strays to far the cops will know
They’ll mobilize and track her down
Another Martha Stewart Christmas
This year it’s different
Than the one she had last year at that resort
In West Virginia
BOJ
# posted by Blind Orange Julius @ 11:45 AM 
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When the Harvard University lampoon people published a parody of Martha Stewart Living magazine, they called it Is Martha Stewart Living?. I really like that!
# posted by 
: 8:27 PM
: 8:27 PM
When I was in high school, I bought the Harvard Lampoon version of Newsweek. It was hilarious (and I think the timing is right that Conan O'Brien would have worked on it). I read it cover to cover so it was laying around the house all the time. My mom, who always saw me reading it, thought I was a Newsweek fan and ordered a subscription in some sweepstakes thingy. I read the actual Newsweek, though not with quite the same gusto as the one from Harvard Lampoon. So in a weird way, Harvard Lampoon was instrumental in me becoming a news-junkie.
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