Lyric Switch Changes Song - I Believe in Father Christmas

Greg Lake Vs. Paul Hewson

I got this CD today, "All You Need is Love," which is a compilation for Paul David Hewson's Project (RED). Many of you know Mr. Hewson from his stage name, Bono, lead singer of the band U2. I have spoken recently about U2 and Bono in particular and his fall from relevance. My friend Jeff Musall recently published on Associated Content a piece about how changing lyrics in a song can really alter meaning. U2 covered a song and Bono changed a lyric. While Bono's transgression was minor, to my ear, it was significant. The song I'm talking about is U2's cover of the Greg Lake song "I Believe in Father Christmas."

Leave it to Bono to push his message any way he can. "I Believe in Father Christmas" was one of my favorite Christmas songs growing up. As I matured, I butted heads with my dad constantly over the whole Christmas episode. I constantly argued about why we would go to Christmas and (sometimes) Easter service at church and never any other time? He would say to me that it was in the spirit of the season that we should go to services during the holidays. Not being brought up particularly religious, (and having classmates in the pews who were) I felt increasingly anxious about being forced into these allegiances I knew nothing about. The song, "I Believe in Father Christmas," said it all to me; that Christmas should be about family and the spirit of the season and not about being pushed into pews and being orated to about what we should think. The line in particular from this song which evokes that best is,

"They sold me a dream of Christmas,
They sold me a silent night,
They told me a fairy story,
'Til I believed in the Israelite."

Told me and sold me until I believed.

Bono, however sings a different tune when he changes the "'Til" to "But." "But I believed in the Israelite." Lake has always said that this was not an anti-Christmas song and I don't believe that it is; however what I've always felt Lake has been saying was that the religious indoctrination we get in our youth; where we're told this epic story of the Virgin birth, is what forms our belief system. And we should be allowed to make up our own minds.