Bah & the Humbugs: Bigger Than Santa - One Night Holy

Bigger Than Santa Home
Bah & the Humbugs Home

BAH & THE HUMBUGS: BIGGER THAN SANTA
A 25th Anniversary Humbug Tribute

Featuring Humbugs songs performed by the following bands:

ONE NIGHT HOLY

No Free Lunch

Read the Lyrics | Listen to the Song

< previous song DISC 2 TRACK 2 next song >

Originally called One Night, a five-piece band featuring singer Donald "Duck" Ducat and a revolving cast of supporting musicians quickly became the most popular 10cc cover band in southern Indiana. Their lucky break came on one of their rare road trips, when they were discovered by songwriter Misty Berry at a festival in St. Louis, Missouri. As fate would have it, Berry had just been commissioned to assemble an original soundtrack for the sci-fi domestic comedy The Martian Christmas. Berry added "Holy" to the band's name, moved them temporarily to Aurora, Illinois, near Chicago, and added ten more musicians, including a second singer, Cory "Cat" Atkins.

The newly expanded band proved to be a potent performing unit, and recorded the critically acclaimed soundtrack album Martian Christmas Music, with Berry producing and providing most of the songs, in just 12 days. Critics hailed the band's unique "interplanetary" sound, but the movie and soundtrack failed to catch the public's attention during a crowded season of Christmas sci-fi films. The band scored an unlikely regional hit from the soundtrack, though, with the Bah & Humbugs cover "Peace on Earth (War on Mars)," to which Atkins had added a movie-related rap. The song's success came to the attention of Misty's uncle Neil Berry at Consignment Records, who signed the band and sent them, with Misty producing again, back into the studio to record a "real Christmas album." The resulting album One Night Holy and its single "When Holidays Attack," another rap adaptation of a Bah & the Humbugs classic, received more praise from critics, but failed to chart.

One Night Holy, though, wasn't ready to give up. After a few more personnel changes, the band financed and produced its own recording of the album everyone remembers. This album was released, after a two-year search for a label, with the simple title 3. A series of radio-friendly, rap-free singles and videos from the album kept the band in the public eye during the Christmas season for the next four years, and to this day, fans scan marquees in December for the show by One Night Holy.

No Free Lunch

(Aster/Wren/Nordquist/Guskin)

A man and a woman on a camelback ride
Slowly heading off to Bethlehem
A man and a woman with a baby inside
And there's nothing fancy or proud about them
They're simply on the lookout
For something to eat
But everywhere they stop
The people there repeat

There is no free lunch
No free lunch
If you want these bananas
It will cost you a bunch
Nothing is free
Not even sugar-free tea
But wherever you look
There is no free lunch

A man and a woman on a night so deep
Find the city lights of Bethlehem
A man and a woman wonder where they can sleep
Isn't there any place left here for them?
They check around town
And they ask at every inn
But everywhere they knock
The answer's always been

There is no free bed
No free bed
You'll have to sleep
In the manger instead
It was voted Best Manger
In the Galilee Bee
But wherever you look
There is no free bed

Oh, you can't always get what you want
You don't always like what you get
But you wake up in the morning
A better day is dawning
And it's a day that you'll never forget

The shepherds and the sheep are asleep in a field
Somewhere in the hills of Bethlehem
Angels appear and say the savior is revealed
And tell all the shepherds to come with them
But when they see the stable
They can't come near
A crowd's already there
And this is what they hear

There are no seats left
No seats left
They came out of the hills
From the east and the west
Three kings paid me in gold
Just to sit in row Z
'Cause wherever they looked
There were no seats left

I said it's SRO
SRO
There is standing room only
To see the big show
You might have to wait in line
Out in the snow
'Cause wherever you look
It is SRO

And there are no seats left/There is no free bed/free lunch
No seats left/No free bed/No free lunch
They came out of the hills/You'll have to sleep/If you want these bananas
From the east and the west/In the manger instead/It will cost you a bunch
Three kings paid me in gold
Just to sit in row Z
It was voted Best Manger
In the Galilee Bee
Nothing is free
Not even sugar-free tea
'Cause wherever they looked/But wherever you look
There were/There is
No seats left/No free bed/free lunch