Let's Run It up the Fir Tree

"On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me," sing the carolers--and then everything goes haywire. "Four bars of soap," they trill, "three cans of peas, two breakfast foods, and some toothpaste on a pear tree." Later, they launch into another holiday favorite: "Dashing through the snow in a 50-foot coupe." They stop to admire a cigarette-ad Santa Claus with a tattoo on each arm--one reading "Merry Christmas," the other "Less Tar"--and then jangle through Jingle Bells with a cash register clanking in the background.

Anyone buying a new Capitol 45-r.p.m. record titled Green Chri$tma$ can study these and other atrocities at yuletide leisure. Lyricist Stan Freberg is an adman himself, with an executive suite on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard and a reputation for the cute commercial (TIME, Aug. 4).) But Freberg also had a solid Baptist upbringing (his minister father still has a church in Pasadena), and for years he has felt Christmas commercialism gnawing away at his religious vitals. "The funny thing is," he says, "that businessmen would sell as much soap or soft drinks at Christmas if they never mentioned the season at all."

When Freberg gave his satire to Capitol Records--donating his profits to charity --the lower ranks happily waxed it. When the brass heard the record, it was yanked off the release list while Capitol's board of directors threshed over the propriety of such uncommercialism. As Freberg and his carolers put it:

Deck the halls with advertising

What's the use of compromising

Fa la la la la la la la la.

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