Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!

Penn Jillette EVERY DAY IS AN ATHEIST HOLIDAY! More Magical Tales from the Author of God, No!

DEDICATED TO

FEBRUARY 28, 1966

JUNE 3, 2005

MAY 22, 2006

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his Blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, and wonders, of His love.

LYRICS BY ISAAC WATTS

EVERY DAY IS AN ATHEIST HOLIDAY

THIS IS NOT A HALF-ASSED XMAS SONG. It’s not at all secular Coca-Cola Christmas. This is authentic Christmas jive. The music was either adapted from a song by Handel or ripped off from part of his Messiah. The melody descends right down the major scale on its way to hell, but lands firmly on the saved tonic. When the Sex Pistols’s music descended directly down the scale, the lyrics were “No future,” and those clever boys go back up and start down again a few times until they land on the tonic with “for you.” I’m not going to get too programmatic with “Joy to the World.” It is a descending scale, but it’s major and confident and root landing makes it safe and jubilant. The music is consonant with joy in the world.

But it’s not about joy in the world. It’s about joy to the world, and there is a world of difference there. I’ve read the Bible and I’ve listened carefully to all of the popular Christmas carols. I enjoy listening to lyrics. I’ve listened to the “Theme from Shaft” a lot and it’s an almost perfect song. It’s recorded with a full orchestra including two wah-wah guitars. Yes, two wah- wahs. You know that the brown-chicken-brown-chicken-brown-chicken part is wah-wah, but the other guitar is wah-wah too. If Beethoven were writing today, he wouldn’t consider an ensemble without two wah-wah guitars to be a proper orchestra.

Isaac Hayes puts that quadruple wah orchestra to use to get the perfect classy, funky, sexy sound. He gives us a few measures of hi-hat for nothing, and the vocal doesn’t even start until we’re knocking on two minutes. The lyrics start out just right with rhetorical questions that are still answered with “Shaft.” It’s lush and inspiring and then… it turns into an Italian air show as the wings come off with one sloppy line. “He’s a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman.” What? “He’s a complicated man BUT no one understands him but his woman?” Why is the first “but” in that line? How the fuck does that conjunction introduce something contrasting or contrary to what has already been stated? Huh? Are we to believe that complicated men are usually understood by most everyone other than their women? The word should not be “but.” “He’s a complicated man, AND no one understands him but his woman” is not very good either. The only being understood by his woman doesn’t really add information. I guess you could try “He’s a complicated man THEREFORE no one understand him but his woman,” or “He’s a complicated man ERGO no one understands him but his woman,” but those seem a little precious and double the syllables. “Consequently” is way too long—you don’t want a four-syllable word in pop music unless you’ve got the triple single syllable double negative of “can’t get no” to take the curse off your “satisfaction.” “Consequently” is also not exactly the right word. His complication doesn’t directly cause the lack of understanding; they’re really one and the same. It’s just restating the idea to me, which is what’s so wrong with the “but.” “Thus,” “hence” or even “so” would make sense if Isaac needed one syllable there, but I don’t feel the need. I would use nothing. “He’s a complicated man. No one understands him but his woman.” That’s fine, one but, one woman, no woman no cry—very Bob Marley. Do a full stop after “complicated man” and it will strengthen the idea; just let it hang there. Then right into “No one understands him but his woman.” Great.

Just when I’m confused by why a complicated man would normally be understood by people other than his woman, Mr. Hayes throws me another curve. I would have let this one slide by if the sandpaper of his “but” hadn’t sensitized my song safecracking fingertips. For most of the song, the excellent backup singers (one of them Telma Hopkins from Tony Orlando and Dawn—and Tony isn’t a private dick who is a sex machine to all the chicks and that’s damn right) answer Isaac with “Shaft” and then one “shut your mouth” after Isaac almost says “motherfucker.” Hayes explains that he was just talking about Shaft and they affirm that they can dig it, and I’m sure they can, even post–Dawn Telma.

The only other time they depart from just singing the surname “Shaft” is after my hated line with that confusing “but.” Right after that line, they add his given name before his surname and sing, “John Shaft” (no one mentions Shaft’s middle name, which I’ve heard is “Troy”). This means the full line with background becomes, “He’s a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman, John Shaft.” Once you hear the chorus response of