Home Read Steve Schmolaris’s Single Review: FreakingSnap | Wrapped In Red

Steve Schmolaris’s Single Review: FreakingSnap | Wrapped In Red

"Oh Shane, not again. We talked about this."

Released over a decade ago, Kelly Clarkson’s Wrapped in Red takes on ever-more sinister tones in FreakingSnap’s minimalist interpretation.

The song, originally about a naked Kelly Clarkson sending herself in a large red box, complete with bows and glitter, via FedEx to her unsuspecting lover’s house, in which she’d jump out, like a nude, big-titted Jack-in-the-Box, to the presumed surprise (and elation) of the man – Shane – she’d become obsessively infatuated with, but instead realized too late that his family (he already had a wife, of course) went on a vacation to Hawaii, and so, instead of being hauled inside and opened up (oh, how desperately she wanted Shane to open her up like a present!), she remained on the front steps, in the box, trapped, as the air temperature slowly dropped; her screams, muffled from layers of thick red wrapping paper, went unheard, and so, as the cold seeped in, she met her untimely demise, and froze solid.

What the original song doesn’t get into is what happened after the man (and his family) returned home. Did they find the present with naked Kelly Clarkson inside? What did they make of it? Did the wife say “Oh Shane, not again. We talked about this.”? Did they try to dispose of her?

FreakingSnap fills in these details: No, the family remained completely unaware that Kelly Clarkson was stalking Shane and had hidden herself, naked, inside a giant red-coloured present on their doorstep; they returned from their Hawaii vacation, slightly tanned, happy and contented with each other’s love. The only thing they noticed was that someone – a neighbour perhaps – had shoveled their walkway and the steps clear of snow. That, or something large had been dragged away.

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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.

 

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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.