Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Absolutely horrible Christmas songs

My wife will tell you that I'm a big fan of Christmas music. I love singing the traditional carols in church, like "Silent Night" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." I enjoyed being in the Christmas pageants at the church I attended as a child/adolescent - I was a donkey one year, a wise man another year, never Joseph. I've great enjoyed singing in church Christmas concerts as an adult - I even had a solo one year. I play nothing but Christmas music between the day after Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. I listen to the local station that plays nothing but Christmas music (this one if you must know)

Having said all that, I must say that there are some Christmas-themed songs that I absolutely, positively can not stand in the least. Here they are, in no particular order:
  • "The Christmas Shoes", NewSong - Do you want to get all teary-eyed during the Christmas season? If so, listen to this. It's manipulative as all get-out. Not only do I find the lead singer's gravelly voice extremely irritating, I do not want to hear about some kid's mother dying when I'm trying to trim the tree. No, no, no.
  • "Jingle Bells", Barbra Streisand - Babs, whose voice does not sound like 'buttah' the more it ages, appeared to have been in the manic phase of her bipolar disorder when she recorded this. The music is so jumpy that I immediately jump to another station when I hear it.
  • "12 Days of Christmas" - Doesn't matter who sings this or how it's updated - the sheer repetitiveness of it annoys the heck outta me.
  • "I Saw Three Ships" - I dislike this for the same reasons as "12 Days," but I do find it barely tolerable when Nat King Cole sings it.
  • "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", Bruce Springsteen - The Boss sounds like he severely strained his voice just before he sat down in the recording studio. The track he laid down isn't pretty.
  • "Santa Baby", Madonna - Only Eartha Kitt has the voice for this song. Back, Esther, back!
  • "Feliz Navidad", Celine Dion - Okay, here's a French-Canadien woman singing a supposedly Latin-flavored song. Bad all the way around.
  • "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time", Paul McCartney - What's with so many Christmas songs having lines repeated incessantly? Sir Paul does it here, and he uses a cloying synthesizer to boot. John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" is light-years better.
  • "Please, Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas", John Denver - Nothing is better than a dysfunctional holiday, so raise your glass and we will all have a cup of 'Christmas cheer'.
The folks at Lean Left say their peace, and I'm surprisingly in agreement with many of them (considering that I don't lean left) - and, their comments about each song are spot on.

More lists can be found here, here, and here. Wow, everyone's hating on NewSong.

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