I like my coffee like I like my humor: black.
No, just kidding. I hate coffee. But I do have to laugh at things that are terrible. It’s my way of dealing, I guess. Even things that are objectively not funny at all. I was thinking about this as I accidentally began to write my latest Christmas hit, “Santa Got Covid.”
I remember listening to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” about 27 times a day each December growing up, and laughing at the absurdity of writing a holiday tune about nuclear fallout and a post-apocalyptic holocaust, but it never occurred to me until this weekend that this was something people were actually terrified of. I was born just a few years too late to be scared of the Cold War and nuclear Armageddon, so there wasn’t a really a personal stake in listening to air raid sirens go off behind the jingle bells. But wow, if I was worried about the bomb, that song might have had more of a bite for me.
Which brings me to the current pandemic, which is scary and not funny. I almost didn’t record the song at all, because it seemed insensitive. As the lyrics say, “We all know someone, or know someone who knows someone.” This is a personal thing for people, including me, and maybe some people don’t want to laugh at it. Maybe we can’t. Or maybe we should. Or maybe I have to.
So I thought about “Weird Al” and his holiday monstrosity, and I thought about my fears of infection, of people I know getting sick and dying, and then I wrote this irreverent song about it anyway. If you like to laugh through your fear and pain, please enjoy. If you like your fear and pain more solemn and reverent, maybe skip it and know that I’m thinking about you and hoping that you and your loved ones get through this thing safely. But mostly, I can’t believe it’s December and we’re still dealing with this, and it sucks, and I hate it, and what else can I do but make fun of it?
Oh, and if you’re REALLY mad about it, you can watch this video of a tree falling on me instead.