Christmas with the Yours

I am in the room, waiting for Santa and for Claus.

• Santa Claus is jokingly referred to as two separate people, and "Claus" is pronounced like the German name "Klaus" [i.e. KLAH-oos], rather than the English "clause".

Suddenly by night they will arrive,

Can't you feel the typical cling-cling-cling-cling-cling?

• Immediately after "by night", the band shouts out "By night! By night! By night! By night!", starting much faster than the main beat and speeding up. This was a recurring gag on the band's comedy show Cordialmente on Radio Deejay.[1] Also, on the second line quoted above, Romani uses the verb feel instead of hear - a possible ironical reference to a literal but wrong Italian-to-English translation, which recurs in several other lines.

Presents for the good, coal for the bad,

Proprio come diceva mia mamma!

• The Italian line above means "Just like my mom said!" and is sung by Romani in a forced North American accent, like the rest of his vocals. Black-colored, coal-shaped rock candies are traditionally given as a gift to "naughty" children at Epiphany, rather than Christmas.

Christmas with the yours, Easter what you want,

Peace between Blur and Oasis!

Christmas with the yours, Easter what you want,

Don't throw atomic bombs because it's Christmas time!

• The first line in the chorus is another intentional Italian-to-English mistranslation - in this case, of the well-known Italian proverb Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi [i.e. (Spend) Christmas with your family/folks, Easter with whoever you want]. The first half of the line is a literal word-by-word translation of the Italian original, while, in the second half, Elio (who wrote the lyrics) jokingly simplified the unmetrical "whoever" into "what". The chorus also mentions the feud between British bands Blur and Oasis during their 1990s Britpop phase, and, in the fourth line quoted above, it satirizes the notorious French nuclear tests on Moruroa, particularly the 1995 ones conducted by then-President Jacques Chirac.

Panettone is on the table, and everybody's drinking Moscato

Panettone is the traditional Christmas cake from Milan. The first half of the line is a parody of "The book is on the table", one of the first English sentences which Italian schoolboys learning English are usually taught; the word Moscato, the name of a famous Italian sparkling wine, is pronounced as Moss-KAY-doh, again in a strong American accent.

Go to buy a tree, but not a true tree,

Because otherwise it would die-die-die-die-die!

Panettone is on the table, but it is another one.

• All of the above lines are sung by Elio in a very non-English, exaggeratedly Italian accent (with hints of Milanese). In his first line, continuing with his intentional mistranslations, he sings true rather than real, then pronounces "die-die-die-die-die" as "dài-dài-dài-dài-dài", in the style of an incitation from a football head coach to players on the field (meaning c'mon, c'mon, c'mon... in Italian). Romani resumes his vocal on the following line.

Infatti è quello senza canditi!

Christmas with the yours, Easter what you want,

Peace between Lino and Cecchetto!

Christmas with the yours, Easter what you want,

Don't drop atomic bombs, at least at Christmas time!

• Romani's Italian line above, meaning Indeed it's the one without candied fruit!, completes Elio's previous reference to "Panettone [...] another one": it is both a slight satire of a 1995 holiday season advert, featuring comedy actress Franca Valeri, for a panettone without candied fruit which Veronese firm Melegatti had just launched at the time, and a jocular reference to the ensuing debate in Italy between admirers of Melegatti's new version of the Milanese cake and traditionalists, who viewed it as a betrayal of a long-established Christmas tradition.[1] The second chorus goes on to mention Radio Deejay host Pasquale Di Molfetta, known as Linus, and founder Claudio Cecchetto; at the time, the latter was on the verge of splitting from Radio Deejay because of a heated contractual dispute between him, Di Molfetta and other broadcasters; Cecchetto would go on to found his own radio station, called Radio Capital (unconnected to the UK network). The two names are respectively pronounced by Romani as LINE-oh and say-shadow.
• During Cesàreo's guitar solo, Romani sings the following lines - the fourth one, below, meaning Do you know what my mom said?

Oh, it's Christmas time,

Please don't drop the bomb, don't drop it!

Proprio come diceva mia mamma.

Sai come diceva mia mamma?

After the solo, Romani and the choir from Radio Deejay (mentioned above) sing a gospel rendition of the "Lino and Cecchetto" version of the chorus; Romani concludes with "Living the refreshing world of Christmas!" and "Monsieur Chirac, garde la bombe avec toi!". The intentional malapropism refreshing alludes to a jingle for Italy's popular "Brooklyn" brand of chewing gum ("Feel the refreshing world of Brooklyn!"), sung by Romani himself in 1980, while the French line, meaning Mister Chirac, keep the bomb to yourself!, is another and more explicit reference to Chirac's controversial 1995 nuclear test. On his very last line, Romani also quotes Afrika Bambaataa and James Brown's 1984 song "Unity", by shouting "Peace! Love! Unity! And having fun!"[1]