Elementary School Folk Carols Project

I have a long and storied history with silly Christmas carols, or changing the words to Christmas songs to make them "silly." They were beloved to me as a child, and I even wrote a short book of Christmas carols when I was in fourth grade in which I changed the lyrics to popular carols and made them "violent." Oh, what a precocious youth I was!

I overheard some of the second-grade students singing "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" on the playground the other day, and it warmed my heart. They weren't quite sure of all the words, so I took a moment to sing the whole song to them. They caught on very quickly, and later wanted me to teach them other Christmas songs. I happily obliged them. It made me wonder what other "wacky" Christmas carols might be out there that I may have either forgotten or missed in my youth.

I decided to record what few Elementary School Christmas Carols I know, in hopes of preserving them for future generations.


We'll begin with that old standby, the short but sweet "Jingle Bells." This is a classic that's been around since at least the 1960's.


Jingle Bells
Batman smells
Robin laid an egg


The Batmobile lost it's wheel
And the Joker took ballet [variation: And the Joker got away.]


You really can't do much better than that one. It's silly, it uses a comic character that apparently all children know, and it keeps the Batman theme going throughout. It's also got a the debasing of a revered "authority figure," it's got a pun, and it's got the ridiculing of a villain. It's perfect.

"Deck the Halls"

Deck the halls with gasoline
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Light a match and watch it gleam

Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Now the school's burned down to ashes
Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Aren't you glad you played with matches?
Fa la la la la, la la la la!

Perfect. I loved this one, even though I had nothing against going to school. I liked it up until fifth grade or so! But it was still fun to pretend to hate it and want to burn it to the ground.


"Joy to the World"

Joy to the world, 
The teacher's dead
We bar-b-qued her head!


And what about the body? [variations: What happened to the body?, Don't worry about the body,]
We flushed it down the potty


And round and round it goes, 
And round and round it goes, 
and rooouuund and roooouuunnd and round it gooooes.

Again, I had nothing against my teacher, but it was fun to pretend to hate her. This one was violent AND slightly blasphemous! Perfection! I heard a variation on this one where "teacher" was replaced with "Barney." The strange thing was that I heard the variation in the past year or so. Apparently Barney bashing is still alive ad well in the world of children?

The last two are focused on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The first is called "Randolph and Red Nosed Cowboy." I suspect this one was just made up by a classmate at my old school because I've never heard anyone else sing it, and it's not really that good. They essentially only replaced one or two key words from the original Rudolph song, so it's kind of lazy. Perhaps we could change it up a bit more and make this one a real classic.

Randolph the red-nosed cowboy
Had a very shiny gun
And if you ever saw it
You would crap your pants and run


All of the other cowboys 
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Randolph
Join in any cowboy games


Then one foggy Christmas Eve, 
The sheriff came to say
"Randolph with your gun so bright, 
Won't you shoot my wife tonight?"


Then how the cowboys loved him
As they shouted out with glee (Yee-Haw!)
Randolph the red-nosed cowboy
You'll go down in history!

The "won't you shoot my wife tonight" is great, but otherwise it doesn't change much, huh?

I think we all know the following song, but I'll include it for history's sake. It is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the little call and response parts added in.


Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
Had a very shiny nose (like a light bulb!)

And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows (like a light bulb!)

All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names (like Pinocchio!)


They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games (like Monopoly! [variation: like Nintendo!])


Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say (Ho! Ho! Ho!)
"Rudolph with your nose so bright, 
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"


Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee (YIP-eee!)


Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
You'll go down in history (like Columbus!) [variation: Like Adolph Hitler!]

Yeah... That last variation was just used by me because I thought (rightly so) when I was twelve that it would be "hilarious."


I think we all changed Monopoly to Nintendo when we were in fourth grade and I kind of liked it ever since. I loved singing the little extra parts because they ANNOYED THE CRAP out of people, and they're just so mindless and stupid to go along with this stupid song.


So are there any I've missed? Let me know if you've got any more!