Listen on YouTube Music > https://youtu.be/21YY_lx36jM?si=rnBzaXqUV2rINJSs
Holiday Stampede
Tight electric riffs, we're ready to ride,
Buckle up, it's a rollercoaster, let’s take this stride.
I walked in loose, headphones beltin’ in my ears,
Boots shinin’, swagger risin’, dressed cool sharp.
Motion gates swung like a bull chute snapping wide,
I’ll play Moses, move this Red Sea with a cart.
A jackpot rodeo in a holiday stampede,
Every cart in the ring thinks it’s born to lead.
Clowns to the left of me, cowboys to the right,
Stop-start moving obstacles in my line of sight.
Aisles shakin’ like a carny ride that’s short on bolts,
Carts fishtail wild and rattle like a snake.
Kids dartin’ left n right, supercharged on sugar volts,
My Moses swagger is fallin’ fast — this was a huge mistake.
A jackpot rodeo in a holiday stampede,
Every cart in the ring thinks it’s born to lead.
Clowns to the left of me, cowboys to the right,
Stop-start moving obstacles in my line of sight.
I’m boxed in now, stuck behind a coupon war at the till,
Scanner beeping slow like fate wants me standin’ still.
Roulette numbers climbing high for a carny ride I didn’t take,
Lord help me, bustin’ three years sober is a sacrifice I can’t make.
A jackpot rodeo in a holiday stampede,
Every cart in the ring thinks it’s born to lead.
Clowns to the left of me, cowboys to the right,
Stop-start moving obstacles in my line of sight.
So hold on tight, let the music unfurl,
This holiday stampede is a wild, wild world.
With heart on the line, and dreams in the mix,
In a jackpot rodeo, we’re takin’ our licks.
ABOUT THIS SONG
Written and produced by Tasmanian Songwriter Jason Bresnehan, Holiday Stampede is a country-rock song with a male vocal. The song emerged from an ordinary pre-Christmas grocery trip to Woolworths at Prospect Vale in Tasmania. Jason entered the supermarket wearing headphones and carrying his usual confidence, imagining the automatic gates opening like the chute at a rodeo and himself as Moses about to part the Red Sea with a shopping trolley. The confidence did not survive for long.
The lyrics transform Christmas supermarket chaos into a rodeo, with shopping trolleys fishtailing, children darting through aisles, confused shoppers becoming clowns and cowboys, and the checkout turning into the final obstacle in the ride. The humour reflects the unusual mix of people who appear in supermarkets as Christmas approaches, including the once-a-year shoppers and the dads and partners operating from shopping lists written by someone who clearly understands the mission better than they do. Beneath the comedy is one small autobiographical line about sobriety, but the song remains deliberately light. It is simply the story of an everyday Christmas collision becoming something worth writing about.
The artwork takes the supermarket rodeo metaphor literally, placing a supermarket trolley in the middle of a dusty arena surrounded by spectators. Two performers occupy the foreground, one dressed in dark rodeo-style clothing and holding a lasso, while the other wears a colourful clown costume and also carries a rope. Groceries sit inside the trolley as dust rises around the scene, visually translating the song’s “clowns to the left of me, cowboys to the right” imagery into the absurd spectacle of a Christmas shopping trip becoming a full-blown rodeo.
This song forms part of the Merry Christmas Collection by Seventh Ribbon Music.