'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
As noted previously, I sell shoes in the mall for a living. With the passing of Thanksgiving, it is now time to change the radio station to the local channel blaring Christmas music 24/7 and get an earful of the Christmas songs that I dislike. No, call it hate ... and most of these, I love to hate ...
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas: For the love of God, would someone please get her a hippo? They're the deadliest animals in Africa, and so any attempts at hippo domestication should reduce the number of annoying girls by one. The fact that her voice sounds like the growth stunted Batman villain Baby Dahl just puts the icing on the cake.
Need a Little Christmas: This is not a Christmas song! It's a song about how life is so depressing because we lost all our money in the depression -- and if we pretend it's Christmas it won't seem so bad. Also, it wouldn't be so bad if all the world didn't start thinking this way around, oh, September.
Santa Baby: Who decided that the Christmas song playlist needed a striptease/sugar daddy song? At least Eartha Kitt can sing, a big improvement over most of the covers, but this song is literally a girl alternately pouting and seducing an old man for stuff. This doesn't put me in a Christmas spirit at all.
My Favorite Things: This one is slightly unfair. I love it, but it's not a Christmas song! It's a song about how much someone loves stuff, and even that doesn't have much meaning for consumerist Christmas, as much of the stuff the singer loves can't be given as presents anyway. (Ever tried boxing cats to give someone "whiskers on kittens"? Flying wild geese aren't exactly gift-friendly either.)
Theory: Ex-Beatles should not make Christmas Music. Observations:
Happy X-mas/War Is Over: Ex-Beatle uses kid's choir to make his inane lyrics sound profound.
Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time: Ex-Beatle uses techno to make his inane music sound "modern."
Conclusion: Theory confirmed.
Christmas Shoes: As far as I can tell, this song was written to test how many tears can be wrung out of someone by being deliberately manipulative. Let's see, we have a poor kid wanting a cheap present for a dying mom so she can look good for Jesus when she meets Him in a few hours. Are you crying yet? No? Let's repeat the chorus with a children's choir!
Do They Know It's Christmas?: Apparently all of Africa is a dry, barren wasteland where they hear chimes of doom but not Christmas bells. I'm not big on playing "spot the racist," but hearing three white dudes talk about those black kids who live in Africa and therefore must be starving and have no access at all to Western Culture registers even on my "condescending white doofus" meter.
Christmas Is Here Again. Not sure if that's the actual title of this song as I can't seem to find it online, but the one lyric that causes me to both hate and remember it goes like this. "He'll [Santa] be here/ with the answer to the prayers that you've made through the year." Santa, all evidence to the contrary, is not *actually* the God of December.
Last Christmas: Taylor Swift, N'Sync -- doesn't matter. This song makes no sense as a Christmas song whatsoever ... If you replace the line "Last Christmas" with "Last Tuesday" the song would make no reference to Christmas whatsoever, as it's a song whinging about how the last boyfriend/girlfriend dumped the singer and how the singer will get back by finding someone new. Great! Just keep it on the pop stations that I avoid, please ...
Country covers of Silver Bells. I want to be more specific on this one, because I like "Silver Bells." It's a beautiful song, even if it's just about the secular side of Christmas. One of the things I like about it is that it's about a city Christmas -- no sleigh bells, no snow, just shoppers and street lights and sidewalks. Let the country singers have all the songs set in the countryside -- White Christmas, Sleigh Ride, Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bells -- and let the city dwellers keep our one city Christmas song. (Well, two -- It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas is clearly set in the city.)
Christmas carols sung by people who can't sing. This is a pretty fuzzy category, but here's the fundamental problem -- many pop singers have lousy singing technique. In their own genres, it's not as noticeable given the reliance on auto-tune and heavily produced music. But it seems like everyone feels a need to release at least one traditional Christmas carol to showcase their "talent." O Holy Night and Ave Maria seem to be favorites for this. Unfortunately, all those sloppy techniques -- inappropriate phrasing, weak breathing, poor enunciation, heavily accented vowels, overly-tightened vocal chords, breathiness, etc. -- cannot be hidden when the song is just a singer and a piano. And it is painful ...
So there are some of the songs that set my teeth on edge this season. What are yours, Ricochetti?
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
“Disco Christmas In Hamster Land”
I have James Lileks to thank for getting this into my head. I've given up hope of ever getting it out.
Mar '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
How about this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7670CXvPX0
The original poem is found here:
http://www.appleseeds.org/longfellow_xmasbells.htm
Edited on November 25, 2012 at 5:19pmFeb '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
John Walker: “Disco Christmas In Hamster Land”
I have James Lileks to thank for getting this into my head. I've given up hope of ever getting it out. · 2 minutes ago
Why do I feel like we could call Cthulhu by playing this backwards ... and given how awful it is, it may be good idea!
Feb '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Schrodinger's Cat: How about this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7670CXvPX0
The original poem is found here:
http://www.appleseeds.org/longfellow_xmasbells.htm · 6 minutes ago
Edited 5 minutes ago
We actually sing this one -- with the traditional tune -- in my church, though they cut out the stanza referring to the guns of the South. It's one I hope they cut out in the new hymnal that's currently being edited, though something tells me they'll make up for its loss with a couple hundred new awful ones.
Apr '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
I am against 99% of the world's meta-songs, and it seems most of them occur around Christmas. (It also seems they are the only kind of song our church music director selects for the choir, which is why I am not in the choir despite often being told I should be a professional singer.) I know that writers are told to write about things they know about, but is hearing other people's singing Christmas carols the only thing they can think to write a Christmas song about?
The worst of the worst is called "I Need a Silent Night." I shall not burthen your ears by linking it, my friends and further encourage you not to seek it out. If you actually listen to the lyrics, your head will explode. It's not a song about Christmas, it's a multi-stanza whine. If you do hear it, ensure you have a strong and flavorful cheese to go with it.
I do make two exceptions about meta-songs at Christmas. First is "The Christmas Song," but only as sung by Nat Cole. Second is "Christmas in the Trenches," which is a song about a famous WWI incident.
Jul '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
I absolutely abhor the Paul McCartney song "Wonderful Christmastime". Awful synthesizers. Horrid lyrics. McCartney sounds like Kermit the Frog.
Feb '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
You can't expect them to write new settings of older Christian poems, or even *gasp* write new lyrics praising the coming of Christ!
I tend to think the prevalence of "meta-Christmas" songs comes from the fact that people either don't understand or feel allowed to talk about the real meaning of Christmas. If you think Christmas is just about food and presents and singing old songs, or are afraid that if you talk about anything else you'll get blacklisted, those are the only things you'll talk about.
Aug '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
I'll see your "Christmas Shoes" and raise you Matthew West's "One Last Christmas" which is about a family having Christmas in September because their child, dying of cancer, won't make it to Christmas.
Granted, it was based on a real event and West did the song as a fund-raiser for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, so that's a good cause.
But I can't listen to it. It was overplayed a couple years ago when it was new, and I had to turn the radio off every time it came on -- which was about six times a day.
I guess there are people who "enjoy" these sorts of songs. I guess.
May '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
They should play Christmas music year round at Gitmo to get the prisoners to talk and make the music stop.
I think the only legitimate Christmas music is what we share in Church on Christmas Eve.
May '10
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Come they told me.....
Pah, rumpah, humbug to the "Little Drummer Boy."
Mar '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Jingle Bell Rock. Any artist. Any arrangement. Any instrumentation. Nothing puts me out of the holiday spirit with the speed at which this annoying frippery does. I go from Fezziwig to the unreconstructed Scrooge faster than you can say "bah, humbug." Bury it with a sprig of holly through its black heart and leave me in peace.
May '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Feliz Navidad.
Pulleeze, not a-gain.
Oct '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Paul Erickson: Feliz Navidad.
Pulleeze, not a-gain.
Say it again, Paul.
I absolutely abhor Paul McCartney. Awful. Horrid.
I keep a handful of extra-strength earwig removers on the iPod, ready to go at a moment's notice. Now that Percival has invoked this, this vile thing, I'm queuing up Memory Pain from Johnny Winter's Second Album.
BrentB67: They should play Christmas music year round at Gitmo to get the prisoners to talk and make the music stop.
I think the only legitimate Christmas music is what we share in Church on Christmas Eve.
I concur. Most so-called Christmas music is an agency of Satan, visited upon us by his insipid legions. The evil of banality. I've done nothing to deserve this level of torture - I was born guilty.
Serves me right to suffer ...
Apr '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Amy Schley:
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. For the love of God, would someone please get her a hippo? They're the deadliest animals in Africa, and so any attempts at hippo domestication should reduce the number of annoying girls by one. The fact that her voice sounds like the growth stunted Batman villain Baby Dahl just puts the icing on the cake.
While hippos are not the tutu-wearing ballet dancers of Disney lore, and have awesome-sharp four-inch ivories, I believe crocodiles are bigger man-killers in Africa. Let me just go do some research....
Dec '10
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
I like Casting Crowns; that song, we'll see.
As to the Little Drummer Boy...hate it except for one version that elevates it to music: Jars of Clay.
Apr '12
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
I am completely confused by your claim that "Need A Little Christmas" isn't a Christmas song. The singer is trying to banish the blues by focusing on... Christmas. That seems like a pretty Christmasy theme to me. And yes, I like the song.
"Santa Baby" makes everybody's love to hate list, but I'm going to swim against the tide by saying that I kinda like it. The complete shamelessness of it just makes it amusing. So there.
Little Drummer Boy, Happy X-Mas: both bad ones, I agree.
But my least favorite Christmas song is probably "Oh, Holy Night". It's just way over the top, and people get far, far too absorbed in the "fall on your knees" part. It just ends up being very silly.
Aug '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
John Rutter's arrangement of "Candlelight, angel light, fire light and star glow." I don't know who wrote the lyrics, but they are cloying. And the music is cloying.
But I don't agree about "Santa Baby." You're right on one point; it's no more a Christmas song than Janis Joplin's "O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz." Both are good, but "Santa Baby" is better.
Apr '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
How do you feel about Mark Steyn's "Marshmallow World"?
And Cyndi Lauper/Nine Inch Nails (?) (can't think of it right now, lemme get back to you)
Dec '11
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
@Amy: I feel your pain. As a business owner, I have refused for years to play Christmas music in my stores; may I add that I consistently receive grateful responses from both customers and employees alike. It's become apparent that many consumers do welcome a respite from the commercial insanity of the holidays.
Jul '10
Re: 'Tis The Season: Christmas Carols I Love To Hate
Quite possibly one of My Top Ten posts of Ricochet. Love it.
And I think Springsteen recorded "Santa Claus is coming to town" while on the pot.