Stronger Than You

Why is this song so obsessed with poultry?

I will never understand why this Christmas song goes so hard.

OKAY MOTHERFUCKERS LISTEN UP

BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT CAROL OF THE BELLS

IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE/SARAJEVO 12/24 AND IT IS SO MUCH FUCKING MORE THAN CAROL OF THE BELLS.

so during the bosnian war (which was this nasty-ass conflict in bosnia and herzgovina) there was this badass cello-playing motherfucker named vedran smailovic. He was from Sarajevo, was upset about all the shit and nastiness that came about through this war (this was full-on brother-killing-brother shit!) that he went around to bombed-out, blown up buildings and funderals––where he was at risk of FUCKING SNIPER FIRE––and playing the cello. This guy was so set on providing one tiny spot of beauty in a seriously nasty war he was risking being fucking SHOT OR BLOWN UP.

AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO INSPIRED THIS SONG.

He’s why there’s the calm cello part at the beginning before everything gets all violent-sounding. It’s THEMATIC.

THAT’S WHY THIS CHRISTMAS SONG GOES SO FUCKING HARD.

WHY ISN’T MORE CHRISTMAS MUSIC LIKE THIS?????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedran_Smailovi%C4%87

There’s the wikipedia article about him and yes…true story…

It’s also important to understand that Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 was not originally a Trans Siberian Orchestra song. It was originally recorded by Savatage, a metal band, for their concept album “Dead Winter Dead,” and when some Savatage members formed TSO, they adopted that song as a TSO song because yeah it’s fucking amazing.

Friendly reminder that this exists.

Friendly reminder that Vedran’s performances also included a pile of rubble that used to be a fountain IN THE CENTER OF A TOWN SQUARE WITH NO COVER.

When asked years later why he’d down something so apparently suicidal, he shrugged and replied that it was his way of proving that “the spirit of humanity was still alive in that place, despite all evidence to the contrary.”

May we all be as brave and stalwart in protesting violence and injustice as Vedran “The Most Bad-Ass Cellist Ever” Smailović.

Also, despite what some articles may say, Vedran was not an old man when this happened. He’s only in his early 60s today, which would have made him no older than 37 when he was playing in the ruins of Sarajevo. Never let anyone tell you it’s only old men who can make a difference.

What goes through my mind whenever I sing this 🎁

I will never understand why this Christmas song goes so hard.

OKAY MOTHERFUCKERS LISTEN UP

BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT CAROL OF THE BELLS

IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE/SARAJEVO 12/24 AND IT IS SO MUCH FUCKING MORE THAN CAROL OF THE BELLS.

so during the bosnian war (which was this nasty-ass conflict in bosnia and herzgovina) there was this badass cello-playing motherfucker named vedran smailovic. He was from Sarajevo, was upset about all the shit and nastiness that came about through this war (this was full-on brother-killing-brother shit!) that he went around to bombed-out, blown up buildings and funderals––where he was at risk of FUCKING SNIPER FIRE––and playing the cello. This guy was so set on providing one tiny spot of beauty in a seriously nasty war he was risking being fucking SHOT OR BLOWN UP.

AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO INSPIRED THIS SONG.

He’s why there’s the calm cello part at the beginning before everything gets all violent-sounding. It’s THEMATIC.

THAT’S WHY THIS CHRISTMAS SONG GOES SO FUCKING HARD.

WHY ISN’T MORE CHRISTMAS MUSIC LIKE THIS?????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedran_Smailovi%C4%87

There’s the wikipedia article about him and yes…true story…

It’s also important to understand that Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 was not originally a Trans Siberian Orchestra song. It was originally recorded by Savatage, a metal band, for their concept album “Dead Winter Dead,” and when some Savatage members formed TSO, they adopted that song as a TSO song because yeah it’s fucking amazing.

Friendly reminder that this exists.

Friendly reminder that Vedran’s performances also included a pile of rubble that used to be a fountain IN THE CENTER OF A TOWN SQUARE WITH NO COVER.

When asked years later why he’d down something so apparently suicidal, he shrugged and replied that it was his way of proving that “the spirit of humanity was still alive in that place, despite all evidence to the contrary.”

May we all be as brave and stalwart in protesting violence and injustice as Vedran “The Most Bad-Ass Cellist Ever” Smailović.

Also, despite what some articles may say, Vedran was not an old man when this happened. He’s only in his early 60s today, which would have made him no older than 37 when he was playing in the ruins of Sarajevo. Never let anyone tell you it’s only old men who can make a difference.

ok the shittiest part about christmastime is the fact people keep skipping over the forth verse of “we three kings” like… we get it. y’all are white protestants who can’t even think about mortality for one single second. 

also people who skip the third verse of “o holy night” are reactionary cowards

ok but these lyrics are so powerful and amazing. im so pissed.

We Three Kings (4):

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom; Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

O Holy Night (3):

Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother. And in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, With all our hearts we praise His holy name. Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we, His power and glory ever more proclaim! His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Important context on O Holy Night: The English lyrics by John Sullivan Dwight are from 1855, a full decade before the abolition of slavery in the United States. In fact, abolition was still a VERY fringe position. Pro-slavery advocates, meanwhile, were arguing that slavery was God’s gift to white civilization. In that year, six years before the Civil War began, Americans were already shooting each other over whether slavery should expand out in Kansas.

Dwight–unsurprisingly, a Unitarian minister–put the most inflammatory possible political statement of the day into his Christmas carol.

No wonder I never knew there even was a third verse of O Holy Night. The conservatives would shit themselves if they had to hear it, let alone sing it.

24 hr christmas music station: rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose

some fucking primal part of my psyche that will NEVER let me live in peace: like a lightbulb🎵

All I Want for Christmas Is You | Mariah Carey

SFJKFJSK I LISTENED TO THAT SONG FOR AN HOUR STRAIGHT THE OTHER NIGHT

I LITERALLY THINK THIS EVERY TIME THE SONG COMES ON

What song is this talking about?

‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’

Otherwise known as the original ‘Blurred Lines’

HEY FRIENDS HISTORICAL REMINDER: ‘WHAT’S IN THIS DRINK’ ISN’T TALKING ABOUT DRUGS, HE IS NOT TRYING TO ROOFIE HER

THE SONG IS TALKING ABOUT ALCOHOL

but still a pushy song

historical reminder that the reason pina coladas and pink squirrels are known as “girly drinks” is because they mask the taste of alcohol and men were know to give women these drinks without informing them that they were alcoholic. It takes a couple of drinks to realize you’ve been consuming alcohol and by then you’re more susceptible to suggestion, making it easier for him to convince you to stick around and have a third drink. When this song was written in 1944 most women didn’t drink regularly, meaning they had a low tolerance and it would only take 2-3 drinks to get her drunk enough that she wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. This was the 1940s version of being roofied

No no no it was not.

“Hey what’s in this drink” was a stock joke at the time, and the punchline was invariably that there’s actually pretty much nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol. 

See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do – and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.“ But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink – unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?“ It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren't supposed to have sexual agency.

Basically, the song only makes sense in the context of a society in which women are expected to reject men’s advances whether they actually want to or not, and therefore it’s normal and expected for a lady’s gentleman companion to pressure her despite her protests, because he knows she would have to say that whether or not she meant it, and if she really wants to stay she won’t be able to justify doing so unless he offers her an excuse other than “I’m staying because I want to.” (That’s the main theme of the man’s lines in the song, suggesting excuses she can use when people ask later why she spent the night at his house: it was so cold out, there were no cabs available, he simply insisted because he was concerned about my safety in such awful weather, it was perfectly innocent and definitely not about sex at all!) In this particular case, he’s pretty clearly right, because unlike in Blurred Lines, the woman actually has a voice, and she’s using it to give all the culturally-understood signals that she actually does want to stay but can’t say so. She states explicitly that she’s resisting because she’s supposedto, not because she wants to: “I ought to say no no no…" She states explicitly that she’s just putting up a token resistance so she’ll be able to claim later that she did what’s expected of a decent woman in this situation: “at least I’m gonna say that I tried.” And at the end of the song they’re singing together, in harmony, because they’re both on the same page and they have been all along.

So it’s not actually a song about rape - in fact it’s a song about a woman finding a way to exercise sexual agency in a patriarchal society designed to stop her from doing so. But it’s also, at the same time, one of the best illustrations of rape culture that pop culture has ever produced. It’s a song about a society where women aren’t allowed to say yes…which happens to mean it’s also a society where women don’t have a clear and unambiguous way to say no.

Reblogging for that last bit because this is what I rant about to Kellie every time this discourse happens on my blog but I’m too lazy to type it out. SO thank you to @dangerwaffle for not being as lazy as me. This song has a cultural context, and a historical context, and it’s worth talking about how fucked up that context is, but you have to get WHICH context it is right first.

I see the Annual Discourse has been reblogged, it is Christmas in fact an deed

broke: tracking christmas by calendar date

joke: tracking christmas by christmas song google searches

woke: tracking christmas by baby it’s cold outside discourse

I will never understand why this Christmas song goes so hard.

OKAY MOTHERFUCKERS LISTEN UP

BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT CAROL OF THE BELLS

IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE/SARAJEVO 12/24 AND IT IS SO MUCH FUCKING MORE THAN CAROL OF THE BELLS.

so during the bosnian war (which was this nasty-ass conflict in bosnia and herzgovina) there was this badass cello-playing motherfucker named vedran smailovic. He was from Sarajevo, was upset about all the shit and nastiness that came about through this war (this was full-on brother-killing-brother shit!) that he went around to bombed-out, blown up buildings and funderals––where he was at risk of FUCKING SNIPER FIRE––and playing the cello. This guy was so set on providing one tiny spot of beauty in a seriously nasty war he was risking being fucking SHOT OR BLOWN UP.

AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO INSPIRED THIS SONG.

He’s why there’s the calm cello part at the beginning before everything gets all violent-sounding. It’s THEMATIC.

THAT’S WHY THIS CHRISTMAS SONG GOES SO FUCKING HARD.

Knowing and understanding history makes everything better. :)

My goosebumps are like knives

Time to get festive ;))

I know this doesn’t go with my blog theme at all but I am crying laughing

i love how they couldnt control their laughter as well

HEY FRIENDS HISTORICAL REMINDER: ‘WHAT’S IN THIS DRINK’ ISN’T TALKING ABOUT DRUGS, HE IS NOT TRYING TO ROOFIE HER

THE SONG IS TALKING ABOUT ALCOHOL

but still a pushy song

historical reminder that the reason pina coladas and pink squirrels are known as “girly drinks” is because they mask the taste of alcohol and men were know to give women these drinks without informing them that they were alcoholic. It takes a couple of drinks to realize you’ve been consuming alcohol and by then you’re more susceptible to suggestion, making it easier for him to convince you to stick around and have a third drink. When this song was written in 1944 most women didn’t drink regularly, meaning they had a low tolerance and it would only take 2-3 drinks to get her drunk enough that she wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. This was the 1940s version of being roofied

No no no it was not.

“Hey what’s in this drink” was a stock joke at the time, and the punchline was invariably that there’s actually pretty much nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol. 

See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do – and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.“ But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink – unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?“ It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren't supposed to have sexual agency.

Basically, the song only makes sense in the context of a society in which women are expected to reject men’s advances whether they actually want to or not, and therefore it’s normal and expected for a lady’s gentleman companion to pressure her despite her protests, because he knows she would have to say that whether or not she meant it, and if she really wants to stay she won’t be able to justify doing so unless he offers her an excuse other than “I’m staying because I want to.” (That’s the main theme of the man’s lines in the song, suggesting excuses she can use when people ask later why she spent the night at his house: it was so cold out, there were no cabs available, he simply insisted because he was concerned about my safety in such awful weather, it was perfectly innocent and definitely not about sex at all!) In this particular case, he’s pretty clearly right, because unlike in Blurred Lines, the woman actually has a voice, and she’s using it to give all the culturally-understood signals that she actually does want to stay but can’t say so. She states explicitly that she’s resisting because she’s supposedto, not because she wants to: “I ought to say no no no…" She states explicitly that she’s just putting up a token resistance so she’ll be able to claim later that she did what’s expected of a decent woman in this situation: “at least I’m gonna say that I tried.” And at the end of the song they’re singing together, in harmony, because they’re both on the same page and they have been all along.

So it’s not actually a song about rape - in fact it’s a song about a woman finding a way to exercise sexual agency in a patriarchal society designed to stop her from doing so. But it’s also, at the same time, one of the best illustrations of rape culture that pop culture has ever produced. It’s a song about a society where women aren’t allowed to say yes…which happens to mean it’s also a society where women don’t have a clear and unambiguous way to say no.

Reblogging for that last bit because this is what I rant about to Kellie every time this discourse happens on my blog but I’m too lazy to type it out. SO thank you to @dangerwaffle for not being as lazy as me. This song has a cultural context, and a historical context, and it’s worth talking about how fucked up that context is, but you have to get WHICH context it is right first.

I see the Annual Discourse has been reblogged, it is Christmas in fact an deed

Hey friendly reminder that this song was first sung by a married couple (Frank Loesser and Lynn Garland) at their own goddamn housewarming party, at the end of the evening, to signify to guests that it was nearly time to end the party, and Lynn Garland loved the song so much that she said she felt betrayed when Frank said he was selling the song. Legit, the quote was “I felt as betrayed as if I’d caught him in bed with another woman.”