A 1 of a Kind Holiday Job

I looked up “Christmas carols” on Gumtree, the Australian version of Craigslist, and found an advert for singing “1Cover Christmas Carols,” which was intriguing. Apparently they will pay you AU$50 an hour to sing Christmas carols in downtown Sydney during peak times on Thursdays while wearing lycra suits advertising 1Cover Travel Insurance. For example:

And here’s a shot from the morning session.

But the suits and the setting are just one part of the hilarity. To be clear, these are not normal Christmas carols, they’ve all been rewritten to be about having accidents and travel woes – but 1Cover saves the day! From 8-9 in the morning and 5-6 in the evening (while standing outside the busiest mall during the busiest shopping day of the week, Thursday) we sang these four songs over and over and over again:

1.       Jingle Sells: Dashing through the snow, on my skiing holiday, off the cliff I go, screaming all the way! Left arm’s in a sling, both legs plastered tight, what a relief it was to ring 1Cover on that night! (This one had a weird tune that went in and out of different octaves, which was funky)

2.       Deck the Halls: Tis the season to be traveling, falalalala lalalala. Stay 5 star or go backpacking, falalalala lalalala. Before you go give us a call, falalalalalalalala. Just in case you have a fall, falalalala lalalalaaaaaa

3.       1Cover is On to it Right Now: No need to stress out, no need to cry, when you land in New  York but your bag’s in Shanghai, 1Cover is on to it – right now! (The rhythm at the end of this one took a bit of getting used to)

4.       12 Days of 1Cover: On the twelfth day of holidays Bad Karma gave to me: 12 days of hell, 11 car pile-up, 10 fingers stealing, 9 spider bites, 8 dodgy meals, 7 scary cyclones [with a dramatic pause for effect], 6 stolen cards, 5 broken ribs! 4 cancelled tickets, 3 puking kids, 2 lost bags, but 1Cover looked after meeeeeee! (Our least favourite one, because it was kind of high-pitched and so hard to do breath control)

It was pretty ridiculous, but also fun, and we had someone filming us for part of it, so there’s at least one youtube clip as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33bAT9YTXPU (those of you on facebook can see more of the pics by visiting the 1Cover page). We made quite a spectacle, and lots of passersby stopped to laugh and take pics. Sometimes people edged in next to us and awkwardly had their picture taken while we were singing. Once an old lady tried to give us some change, but we waved her off because it was a commercial endeavor, after all.

Here’s a last pic of all of us posing with the big cut-out that we had next to us while singing (they’re really into the lycra onesies, their main ad campaign). 

Definitely one of the weirder jobs I’ve done!