Racket Bracket, Day Four: Sleigh-Riding Through Some Marshmallows or Something

I'm still feeling lazy. Pretend there's an intro here.

[...]

And that brings us to today's selections, Marshmallow World and Jingle Bells (the Streisand version--that caveat is important). Let's jump right in!

Marshmallow World

In a word: Tra-la-la. (It's hyphenated, it counts as one word.)

Select lyrics:

It's a marshmallow world in the winter,
When the snow comes to cover the ground,
It's the time for play, it's a whipped cream day,
I wait for it all year round. 

Defining characteristics: An abundance of questionable food metaphors.

Oh God, this song. This song is so sugary sweet that it makes Candyland look like Oat Bran Fun Time. Here are the all the food metaphors contained in this song:

marshmallow world

whipped cream day

marshmallow clouds

the sun is red like a pumpkin head

Sorry, just have to interject with this:

Moving on:

It's a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts

It's a sugar date

Okay, okay, we get it. You've made your point.

Except hold up, because not one of these metaphors is actually apt. We've already settled the "pumpkin head" issue, but "marshmallow world"? "Whipped cream day"? First of all, marshmallows and whipped cream are nothing alike, so at least one of those is wrong (since they are purportedly describing the same thing). Second of all, neither of those is anything like snow, so they're actually both wrong. This entire song is a house of cards built on a foundation of sand or, as circumstances would have it, a house of sugar built on a foundation of more sugar.

Which brings me to what is perhaps the most salient point here: if you're going to compare snow to sugary things, why not just go with straight-up SUGAR? Anyone who's ever made a gingerbread house knows that powdered sugar and a gently picturesque winter snowfall are basically the same thing. A "marshmallow world" just sounds terrifying. Where do you step? Marshmallows are so springy; it'd be like walking on tiny, sticky trampolines!

I can buy marshmallow clouds, maybe. The phrase "yum-yummy world" makes me want to upchuckle but I will allow it because things do look sugar-coated after its snows. I'm still trying to figure out if "sugar date" refers to a literal date (as in the fruit) that has been coated in sugar or is yet another metaphor for having a swell time out on the town with your best gal.

I imagine this song was the product of a middle-school creative writing assignment ("Briefly describe a scene using metaphors") assigned to hungry students the period just before lunchtime. That seems like it would explain things.


Jingle Bells (Streisand version)

In a word: Nerve-wracking. (Hyphens!)

Select lyrics: You already know the lyrics. The lyrics are not the problem here.

Defining characteristics: Speed speed speed speed speed speed speed speed.

Evaluation: This song sends my blood pressure through the roof. I don't mean that hyperbolically, like I do when I say things like, "'Marshmallow World' might give me diabetes." I mean it in a very literal sense. I can feel my stress level ticking upward from the very first note. It's really saying something that I can happily rock out to a Christmas song that scolds me for how I've wronged and neglected the people of Ethiopia but I can't handle ten seconds of a song about a devil-may-care afternoon of sleighing.

This song is "Jingle Bells" if "Jingle Bells" were a stressed-out college freshman strung out on Five-Hour Energy, coffee, and Adderall the night before finals. This is perhaps the last thing I want from a Christmas carol. Boo, "Jingle Bells," boo.

Additional note: just thinking about this song in order to write about it has set my heart hammering as if I just sprinted through airport security or publicly confessed my love to my Portuguese housemaid. Let that be an indication of the effect this song has.

§

Final verdict: This is a tough call. If I had written this entry yesterday, it would have been "Marshmallow World," no contest (because it comes on about forty times a day at the MB and I just cannot take it anymore). But this morning "Jingle Bells" came on at work, and it felt like the walls were closing in on me as disembodied Barbra Streisand heads floated around my face, mocking me, squawking out, "JINGle bells, JINGle bells!" If the automatic weekly specials announcement hadn't blocked out the finale of the song I think I would have wedged myself into the cubbyspace underneath my register, forcing my coworkers to gently lure me out with food or something. "Here, girl, look at this nummy treat! The song's all over, come on, come on out! That's it! Good girl! Who's a good girl?!"

Jingle Bells wins, in case you weren't getting that.

In a side note, the video of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra singing "Marshmallow World" almost makes that song bearable, mainly because you can tell they secretly hate it as much as I do.

Tomorrow: "Christmas Shoes" and "Hey Santa" face off. Guess which one of these songs will be claiming the moral high ground!