The Post Whingebag column of the Bangkok Post has recently contained the almost obligatory pre-Christmas brouhaha about the noises coming out of department store sound systems. And they do have a point.

We have to disregard the idealists who expect commerce to occur in silence, ignoring the fact that noise, for most Thais, is a necessity of existence. Let me instead try to placate those who object to (pseudo-)Christian carols being used to celebrate what is in fact a triumph of Oriental capitalism. The cultural impropriety argument.

Songs, loud, repetitive and derivative, appear to be an economic imperative. So what we need is just different songs, something more appropriate to contemporary Thai capitalism. And since Thailand is culturally very comfortable with stealing farang music, we have no need to write new melodies.

We just need to write new, more culturally appropriate lyrics for the tunes we already have. And since the cachet of English is de rigueur in upper-end retailing in Thailand (name me a department store with a Thai name), these lyrics should be in English.

I here offer a few examples. And I invite the plagiarists of Thailand to add to the corpus.

(to the tune of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’)

Oh little town of Buriram,
How still we see thee lie.
Above thy bribed complicity
Newin Chidchob rides high.

Yet in his dark dreams shineth
The everlasting fear.
Despite his guiles and all his wiles,
He may not make Premier.

(to the tune of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’)

O come all consumers,
Spend in exultation,
Spend till your credit cards
Are a-all maxed out.
Glory to Mammon, in the highest.
O come let us go shopping.
O come let us go shopping.
O come let us go sho-opping,
Ti-ill we drop.

(to the tune of ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing’)

Hark! the exile Thaksin sing,
Phuea Thai is just the thing.
Keep the faith and win the polls.
Bring him back and save his gold.

Joyful will the nation rise
When he frees Cambodian spies.
With th’angelic voice proclaim
‘He will be PM again’

Lo! there’s Thaksin in the pink,
Glory to the video link.

(to the tune of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’)

God rest ye merry PAD,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember you can always mob
If things don’t go your way.
With party leader Sondhi Lim,
You’ll always win the day.
With a threat to shut down Suvarnabhumi,
Suvarnabhumi,
With a threa-eat to shut down Suvarnabhumi.

(to the tune of ‘Deck the Halls’)

Deck the streets with reds and yellows,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
’Tis the time to club your fellows,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
Don we now our riot gear,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
And cause mayhem far and near,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.

(to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’)

O Abhisit, O Abhisit
How do you get away with it?
With choir-boy grin and PR spin,
You somehow always seem to win.

Your Foreign Minister’s a joke
And Newin soon will go for broke.
Your party’s going to flop, I fear,
You’ll barely last another year.

(to the tune of ‘Once on Royal David’s City’)

Once in loyal Pa Prem’s city
Stood a house on Soi 32,
Where the Privy Council met in secret,
Making plans to have another coup.
Who was there, the state betraying?
No one knows. Pa Prem’s not saying.

(to the tune of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’)

Oh you’d better not march,
You’d better not squat,
’Cause if you’re a Red,
You’re gonna get shot.
ISA is coming to town.

They’ve been making a list.
They know what you think.
And if you think wrong,
Then you’re in the clink.
ISA is coming to town.

They know who’s DAAD.
They know who’s UDD.
They know who’s wearing red or pink,
So wear pink and you’ll stay free.

Oh, you’d better not whinge,
You’d better not moan,
Keep your thoughts to yourself,
So they’ll leave you alone.
ISA is coming to town.

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).