I Am The Blog

More festive tunes — 4 songs by Weird Al

For my second installment of holiday songs, I’ve decided to feature not one, not two, but count ‘em — FOUR “Weird Al” Yankovic songs. As far as I know, Weird Al has never come out as being irreligious or a freethinker, and he may be Christian (in fact, a question from 1995 in the Ask Al archive from his site includes only a very brief answer to the question of whether he “would consider himself a Christian”. His response to the questioner is simply “Yes”). But nothing is sacred in Weird Al’s universe of songwriting, and I’m including four examples of this.

* “Christmas at Ground Zero” is one of my favorite Christmas songs because it definitely desacrilizes the Christmas season and has an anti-war message. It describes a “jolly” Christmas during a nuclear holocaust and includes vintage 50s and 60s video clips from the good old days when they used to scare kids by practicing for nuclear fallout by ducking and covering, as if that would really help if your city is hit by a nuke. (The song was written long before 9-11 occurred, in case you’re curious, so no relation to that Ground Zero). EDIT: click here to view in a new window if clicking on the embed doesn’t work.

* “The Night Santa Went Crazy” is a (slightly) less macabre and funnier take on the Christmas holiday. As the title might suggest, a “disgruntled” Saint Nick finally snaps and goes postal in the North Pole. The video I’ve embedded below is a claymation-type take on the song that someone apparently did for their thesis. An “extra gory” alternate live version of the song can be seen here. With his two Christmas songs being so violent and laughingly depressing, you get the impression that it must not have been his favorite holiday growing up. (Rumor has it, he got notebook paper as a present one Christmas!)

* “Weasel Stomping Day” is perhaps the least obvious choice to include here, but it actually may come the close to criticizing religion of the bunch. As you might guess, people go around stomping weasels in the song, but if you listen more closely to the lyrics, you’ll hear several subtle freethought-like messages (“Bash their weasely skulls right in / It’s tradition, that makes it okay”), and a few nods to Christmas in the video that suggest that he had religious holidays on his mind

* “Amish Paradise” is one of Weird Al’s best-known songs. It’s a parody of Ganga’s Paradise by Coolio (the other three are Weird Al originals). The song isn’t specifically about a holiday, so I’m bending the definition of “festive” tunes here, but it is the only one that openly pokes fun at religious extremism, that of the “crazy Mennonites” (isn’t that redundant?) the Amish are. It’s also the only video I know of that features both Florence Henderson (the mom from the Brady Bunch) and a depiction of hell!

I wonder what Weird Al, who pokes fun at the Amish for “shunning fancy things like electricity”, would think of the recent stories of extremist orthodox Jews attacking a journalist using an electronic device on the Sabbath, or complaining about electric lights turning on at their apartments on the Sabbath.

Remember the Sabbath, to spit on journalists

A reporter for Australia’s ABC was recently attacked by Orthodox Jews. Her story is here . (Thanks to Richard Collins for posting a link to an article on End Herediatary Religion about this.)

A protester being carried away by Israeli police — Getty Images: Darren Whiteside

Basically, ABC Middle East correspondent Anne Barker took a wrong turn while covering a protest by (ultra) Orthodox Jews over a city parking lot being open on the Sabbath. And this is how she was treated. From the ABC Australia article by Anne Barker:

As a journalist I’ve covered more than my share of protests. [...] I’ve been at violent rallies in East Timor. I’ve had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. [...] But I have to admit no protest – indeed no story in my career – has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday[...]

Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays – or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews. [...] I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which. [...]

Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me. I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting – on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms. It was like rain, coming at me from all directions [...] Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me. wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. [...]

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.

Because they believe Yahweh doesn’t want anyone to break the Sabbath (after recently rereading Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, I know this is supposed to apply to both Jewish people and strangers), they think they are justified in repeatedly assaulting a reporter just because she has a tape recorder running.

Religion can be dangerous when it says it applies to not only people who follow it, but to everyone around you. I guess considering how God acts in the Old Testament, if you believe it literally I can understand why they’d want to make it clear to God that they were not condoning her breaking of the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2-3 (KJV) says

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.

Since they were specifically upset about the tape recorder, my guess is that was because of the electricity ("fire") it uses. Dogma Free America recently reported on a claim by an Orthodox Jew couple that it is a "human right" not to have motion-sensor lights, since they believe they must stay out of the hallway so as not to trip the "fire" of the lights on the Sabbath.

The big question for me is this: the Bible is clear in a number of places that if you break the Sabbath,  you should be put to death. But they left her alive. Why would they think that they still need to keep the Sabbath, but not apply the punishment? I guess it’s some small consolation at least that they didn’t decide to kill her.

I know that not all people who believe in Judaism or religion in general are like this, but it shows what can happen when people take dogma too literally. It’s sad when people hold ridiculous beliefs like this, but an outrage when they attack other people for not holding the same beliefs.