TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA LYRICS - What Is Christmas?

"What Is Christmas?"



[NARRATION]



By this time a harder rocking stage

Would be impossible to find

And though no one was now drinking

The owner did not seem to mind



And the angel marveled how one man

Could turn around a life

And then that life turn around another's

And how it rippled through this night



But there was someone in that room

Whose heart had not been changed

A heart that had grown so hard

You'd have thought it could never be arranged



It was the businessman from downtown

Who had stopped there to rest his feet

And he clung to his drink

(where he watched his thoughts sink)

While any strangers, he refused to greet



You could see upon his face

How happiness had been so long deferred

It was practically as if unhappiness

Had somehow become preferred



Now the angel had not seen the businessman

Though they had in that room been near

Nor did the angel see him as he left the bar

When he could no longer stand this christmas cheer



And as the businessman exited the door

He heard someone complaining on the tv

It was the "grinch" ranting against christmas

And the man found that he agreed



[WHAT IS CHRISTMAS?]



What is christmas?

Tinseled fairytales

Day old stockings lined up in a row



What is christmas

Could someone tell me that?

What is christmas?

Surely, i don't know



And everywhere these lights

Who needs to color night?

Could this whole thing be planned?

I do not understand



This christmas

Trees with colored lights

Underneath they still are only trees

Do you think that one day perhaps they might

Find that christmas

Is kind of a disease?



Every year it's waiting for me

Waiting for me

Every year it constantly defies

Placing strangers

There before me

There before me

Spreading hope and cheer

Mixed in with happiness

Fraternal bliss and other christmas lies!



And there's one more thing that i have discovered

And i would now like you to know

The reason for christmas i now realize

Is an excuse to tolerate snow

Snow!

I don't even like the sound of it

Anyway, where was i

Oh, yes!



What is christmas?

Candles everywhere

A fire hazard any other day

Children light them

No one seems to care

All for christmas



Every year it returns here

And every year it's waiting for me

Why can't christmas disappear

And just pretend it never saw me

Every year i get my hopes up

That it will somehow just leave

But every year i wake to find

That once again it now is christmas eve