chord and I go ... “ Elf awareness ”, it just popped out . They ’ re all like , “ Can we say that ?” I ’ m like , “ Absolutely we can say that . Are you kidding me ?” That is brilliant .
[ WM ] That is brilliant .
[ Crowder ] It was so fun . We were just laughing the whole time in the songwriting process . It was beautiful .
[ WM ] Moving to my next favorite song … I don ’ t know about you , but I haven ’ t seen my chin in like 30 years . Did your wife inspire the “ Ballad of Mrs . C ( she ’ s sick of the beard )” song ?
[ Crowder ] It ’ s an analogy for what it looks like and feels like , I would suspect , to be doing something public , like going and playing music for a living . And granted , my wife works as hard as I do , or harder than I do , better at her job than I am at mine , but I just thought this would be perfect ... The idea of the beard getting shaved … Santa being under there , a person . When we just project all these things , all the things we want from him onto him … and you don ’ t think about everything that ... He and Mrs . C got a life going on outside of this . He works like 24 hours , that ’ s it . He ’ s just cruising around eating ... “ bowls full of jelly ” comes from somewhere . ( laughing ) So he didn ’ t have much to do through the year , and then she ’ s carrying the whole deal .
[ WM ] “ And she hates the clothes ”… that ’ s one of my favorite lines from it .
[ Crowder ] But , no , my wife is actually the keeper of the beard , so I don ’ t trim it or do anything . The last time I saw my chin would be the year 2000 . I told you this story before , where I went in and it was midnight and I thought , “ It ’ s the dawn of the millennium , when am I going to be around for the dawn of the millennium ? And so I ’ m going to take this time and opportunity to do a spiritual cleanse .” And it ’ s very inwardfocused . And so midnight happens , I kiss her , “ Happy New Year ,” and go in the bathroom , Bic razor shaved my head and my face .
[ WM ] Oh , no !
[ Crowder ] Oh , yeah . Everything was gone . And I ’ m looking at myself in the mirror going , “ This was not Jesus talking , this is a terrible idea .”
[ WM ] It was a terrible idea .
[ Crowder ] You don ’ t know what your cranium shape ... you don ’ t know what this is shaped like and mine looked like a speed , downhill , bike racing helmet . I mean , it ’ s like extra CPU back here or something . Aerodynamic this way . And she was like , “ What are you doing in there ?” So