This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is by White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin.
Lyrics
I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know
But I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I’d rather break bread with Dawkins
Than Desmond Tutu, to be honest
And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism
To the commercialization of an ancient religion
To the westernization of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling PlayStations and beer
But I still really like it
I’m looking forward to Christmas
Though I’m not expecting
A visit from Jesus
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I don’t go in for ancient wisdom
I don’t believe just ’cause ideas are tenacious
It means they’re worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords
But the lyrics are dodgy
And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation
Of children who, in tax-exempt institutions
Are taught to externalize blame
And to feel ashamed
And to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs
I’m not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolates
Is just fine by me
Cause I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You’ll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won’t understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who’ll make you feel safe
In this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl
And if my baby girl
When you’re twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You’ll know what ever comes
Your brothers and sisters and me and your mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you
Waiting
I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Interesting. I’ve posted that song on my blog (as a youtube video). But I never thought of it as sacrilegious.
I grew up in Perth, Australia, where Christmas comes in summer and Christmas day can be unpleasantly hot. Most Australians are not particularly religious. So this song seemed a realistic view of what Christmas can be in Australia.
(Sniffles and wipes eyes) Awright, who’s been cutting onions?
This has been my favorite Christmas song for over a decade now. The video I like best is of Minchin performing it live, but this a fun version.
As for me, except for one family member, the song describes a fantasy. “These are the people who make you feel safe in this world…” True of my father. Not true of my mother, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, at least the ones I grew up knowing. True of cousins on my father’s side, but we didn’t really connect until I was well into adulthood.
Slightly OT, since I consider Jesus Christ Superstar to be a not terribly kind commentary on the Gospels, but Minchin starred as Judas in a staged version of that script in 2012 or so. I have the video of it (purchased from Amazon). It is, to me, an extraordinary experience, even if the lead (Jesus) is not the strongest singer I’ve ever seen in this kind of production.