Song Description

Humorous adolescent complaint about growing up in a Jewish-Catholic household

Lyrics

SHALOM, SANTA

Dreidl, dreidl, dreidl.
I made one out of clay.
And Daddy hung it on the tree
On Christmas Eve day . . .

Adam Mitchell is a Quaker.
He's a Quaker through and through.
Sally Baker is a Baptist.
That's another point of view.
We were walking in the park one day, I heard them say,
"Hey, Michael, what are you?"
I said, "My Daddy is a lapsed Catholic
And my mama is a cultural Jew."

Now, I have to say my parents
Aren't religious in the least,
But my grandpa is a rabbi,
And my uncle is a priest.
And they're always playing monkey in the middle,
And the monkey is--guess who?
When your Daddy is a lapsed Catholic
And your mama is a cultural Jew.

Wish I had a faith I could have faith in,
Like everybody in my homeroom does,
But nobody I turn to has the answer--
Not even Judy Blume does.

Are you there, God? It's me, Michael. Uh--Michael
Kugelman-Kelley.

Kind of wish I was a Moslem
Or a budding Buddhist monk,
A reborn Jehovah's Witness
With my pamphlets in a trunk.
If I only were a Hindu, I could do all day
What all the Hindus do,
But instead I've got this Irish temper
From the tsuris I go through.
Now, perhaps I tend to overstate the guilt and contradictions that ensue,
But it seems that what on one hand is a mitzvah
On the other is taboo.
So I've gotta say an Ave,
And an oy vey,
And a mea culpa, too,
'Cause my daddy is a lapsed Catholic
And my mama is cultural Jew.