THEA: I guess we’re already getting in the Christmas spirit here. Two Christmas songs in a row!

This one I have to blame my niece for. When we asked her to give us her impression of “Naughty List”, she remarked that an icicle-murdering snowman was actually a more frightening story line than an axe-murdering Santa Claus. Apparently Chad took it as a challenge to tell that story.

So here we are. And yes, some of these lines came from me…but I was mostly on “make it fit” duty, as usual.

THEA: I’ll just do the disclaimers. [LAUGHS]

First of all, what you see here is an AI-generated image. The names and ages are entirely random; if your name or one you recognize is on the “Naughty List”, it’s a total coincidence.

Second: We ran this Santa-As-An-Axe-Murderer tune by the people we thought most likely to have a problem with it, and no one did.

So we hope everyone gets the joke. Ho ho ho, as they say in the biz.

As is referenced in my bio, when I lived in Seattle, I did a lot of work for the brilliant  radio personality Bob Rivers, who succumbed to a lengthy battle with cancer in 2025. Bob was a genuine comedic genius; one thing he was famous for was his hilarious, satirical Christmas music.

So this one’s for you, Bob. Merry Christmas, man…we’ll see you again someday.

THEA: Okay, this one will start with an admission:

[INHALES DEEPLY] For six months when I was about 21, I played keyboards and sang in an Elvis impersonator’s back up band.

I was young. I needed the money.

(Apologies to the Elvis fans out there…but playing in this particular band was truly one of the weirdest gigs of my entire life; I’m sure most of them are good.)

Many years ago, I was trying to describe this extremely colorful bandleader to a friend of mine, so I did a Google search. I discovered at that time that the bass player who’d been in the band before I was in it had written a book about his experiences playing with the same guy.

Well, obviously I had to talk to him, and I had to read his book.

The author’s name is Frank Siraguso, and the book (which I highly recommend if you are entertained by gig and road stories, which I definitely am) is called “He Don’t Look Like Elvis”. It’s available on Amazon.

I found Frank’s email address, wrote to him right away, and the two of us started to compare notes. This will surprise precisely no one, but our experiences were remarkably similar. We quickly became electronic friends.

Now for the details:

Yes, there was a diner called “EAT”.

Yes, people threw underwear at “Elvis”.

Yes, “Elvis” was cheap.

Yes, the show was actually pretty good if you’re into that sort of thing.

Yes, women were very disappointed when they saw him without makeup. (My close friend Dennis Varo was playing bass in the band when I was in it…we personally witnessed two girls who came looking for his room in the hallway of the Best Western in Butte, who were bewildered and completely let down by his appearance when he came to the door without makeup.)

So this song is only slightly fictionalized. I asked Frank if it was all right with him if we used the title of his book as the title of the song and the hook, and he said it was.

And on a happy personal note: It was at that Best Western in Butte that I met my future bandmates from Seattle, who were playing in another room…one being the great songwriter/musician/vocalist Rob Moitoza, formerly of the legendary Bay Area band The Sons of Champlin. Rob’s resume is far too broad and impressive to recite here (that’s Rob playing bass on the classic Sugarloaf tune “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You”) but if you get a chance, look him up too.

Those were the guys that rescued me out of the Elvis show. And now I get to write about it with Chad…who just…ran with all this.

What a life I’ve had. [LAUGHS]

THEA: This is what happens when we start listening to Michael Franks. (We’re just on a little jazz tear here…we’ll be back to our usual writing shortly.)

I suggested to Chad that we should write a new song about an industry other than hospitality (“Keys To The City”, “They All Know My Knock”); we’d already written “Putting One Over On You”, but because Chad knows well the language of the corporate world, it seemed natural to find another office job angle. (Note to those who don’t work in the corporate world: People with “C” titles—Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer—are referred to as C-Suite employees.)

I believe it was also my idea that it should be about a guy who’s very attracted to his CEO but can’t do anything about it. As long as I’ve known Chad, he’s been a huge fan of the double entendre, so I knew this was going to be fun.

A couple of hours later we had a framework (that’s Chad…and I don’t think we touched the chorus at all); the only direction change we had to make was that the song was too subtle at first. Once we decided to let that go and be a bit bolder, it fell into place very quickly. Every one of the suggestive lyrics has an innocent explanation (I will decline to say which of them were my ideas, except for “I was thinking about her feet”…that one I have to claim here, because when I make Chad laugh that’s a victory for me), and there’s an ambiguity in the wrap up we both really loved.

Favorite part: The recurring elevator sound.

THEA: I’ve mentioned before that we write humor; we have a pretty large catalog of it,  but this is the first one we’re presenting here.

Chad is kind of an idea machine. And he’s a much funnier person than I am.

He was cooking up a Suno recipe for a Pacific Northwest grunge sound for something else, but then decided to pivot to writing a funny song about a guy living in Seattle (where we both used to live) who missed the grunge scene bythismuch.

Ordinarily—and there are exceptions, but it’s often this way—things are about 75% finished before I ever even see the lyrics. This one is closer to an even contribution, I suppose because of the familiarity we both have of the city and its music scene.

There was a great foundation for a song here, but I knew we needed to re-tool the chorus and settle on a funny hook. It was originally something about coffee that I can’t actually remember now. (When I can’t quite grab onto anything, that’s a sign.) So we worked together to find the people in his life who are critical of him (it wasn’t hard): his therapist, his mother, his father, his girlfriend…and it was so ridiculously easy to imagine what they would say.

At first, the line in the chorus about the mother was “my mother says I’m weak”, but then I asked Chad if he thought “mom says I’m weak” would be funnier, and now we both just about spit our drinks whenever we listen to that line.

I’ll leave it to Chad explain all the Seattle references in the song (SubPop, The Stranger, The Rocket, etc.)…but yeah, at least for us, this one was almost too much fun to write.

CHAD: Yeah, this one was a lot of fun. She doesn’t say it, but Thea is also hilarious and we both came up with some really funny lines in this.

As for the various Seattle references:

The Central Tavern (“Seattle’s Only 2nd Class Tavern”) was a big spot for live music, and if I recall correctly Nirvana had their first Seattle show there, and many other Grunge pioneers played there as well. I’m sure I still have one The Central’s t-shirts somewhere. Capitol Hill, coffee shops everywhere, and Belltown (where many grunge bands had practice spaces) are all well-known Seattle locations.

The Stranger was one of those weekly alternative newspapers you could find everywhere, and The Rocket was a music-focused paper that came out every few weeks. I always looked forward to getting a copy because the local music scene was covered so well.

And, I’m sure we all know the whole “flannel” and “thrift shop” thing related to Grunge. It’s a pretty well-known stereotype, but honestly it was deserved.

And last, but certainly not least, is Sub Pop - a great record label that put out a lot of great albums back in the day. Green River, early Nirvana, Mudhoney, Afghan Wigs, Tad, L7, Soundgarden, and so many other great local bands. The “Singles Club” was awesome - a new single every month.

So, after 30+ years in Seattle I figured we should have at least one song about the place.