I mean… seriously, Paul. What the hell? What is this shit? Everything about this song is lazy. The lyrics. The melody. The beat. The musicianship. The singing. The recording. Not a single person involved with this song sounds like they want to be there, that they’re all thinking “fuck, Paul, just let us go already, willya? I got some errands to run before the benefit dinner.”
I guess, technically, “99 bottles of beer on the wall” is a lazier song, but at least it’s fun. For a while. There’s nothing fun about the McCartney piece.
Oh, I forgot about that time when the chorus sings “ding-dong, ding-dong” over and over again. Yeah, that bit was pure magic.
Anyway, glad I got that off my chest. But it just sucks that the sole Christmas song written by my favorite Beatle is such a substandard, lazy piece of dreck.
The song has a good hook. “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time” is a good hook. Everything else is just a simple buildup to the hook.
The synthesizer part is excellent. Paul wrote the song when he was stoned. One thing about being stoned is that it enhances the “echo/delay” effect when played on a synthesizer. Also, the way the line “oh, don’t look down” kicks in a beat early after the line “lift a glass” is a nice touch of adding a rhythmic surprise.
The song doesn’t aspire to be anything spectacular. It’s not that the writing is “lazy”, it’s that Paul was just trying to write a simple ditty. Which he did, effectively. If it wasn’t effective as a Christmas jingle, it wouldn’t have earned $15,000,000 in cumulative royalties as per its Wikipedia page.
And I wouldn’t call it lazy; the CS-80 synth sound was something of a risk for a christmas track, especially in 1979. Works well though and sounds timeless.
I fail to see any reason for the hate. Granted, it’s not as good as “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” but it’s a perfectly decent Christmas song. Johnny Marks wrote songs that are just as simple, but you don’t see the hate for “Holly Jolly Christmas.”
Reminds me of seeing Billy Joel on Inside the Actor’s Studio. He went into a place to have dinner and the piano player saw him. Recognizing him, the piano player tried playing “Piano Man”. After playing a bit of it, he realized it is a very simple and repetitive song. He looked over to Billy Joel and Joel just gave him a knowing, “Yeah, I hit it big with* that*” look.
Isn’t it from roughly the same era he did “Let 'Em In”? That one was equally as pitiful. If you told me that was the same Paul McCartney from The Beatles (or even the same guy who did Maybe I’m Amazed or Live Or Let Die), I would not believe you if I didn’t already know it was true.
Nobody’s perfect. He has had a good, long career. A bunch of great tunes, and some really outstanding songs. He has nothing to be ashamed of. Imo.
A few bums in the bunch is to be expected.
Don’t play that song, that achey breaky song,
The most annoying song I know.
'Cause it you play that song, that nauseating song
I might blow up my radio.
Sure, but that may describe half his output from both the Beatles and Wings. Did he get a particularly potent batch of weed this time around?
Reinforces the consoiracy theories, doesn’t it? Sometimes he seems to be taken over by the ghost of a really lame Tin Pan Alley writer. Or as Dave Barry put it, aliens from Planet Weenie.
I have a certain amount of admiration for it ever since I read that it earns Paul more in royalties each year than the entire Beatles catalog combined. (I may have the factoid slightly mangled, but it was along those lines.)
Yes - “Let 'Em In” was more phoned in than “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?”, “Her Majesty”, and “Smile Away” (a number off Ram, which had maybe several half-assed ditties).
“Silly Love Songs” is almost as anemic, and “Coming Up” is juuuuuussst slightly less insipid than SLL, basically in that order.
I’d like to see an arm wrestle between Paul’s Christmas number and “Let 'Em In” - insomniacs especially would appreciate it.
oh great now I have that fucking let em im flute thing going through the ole noggin.:mad:
mmmmmm I’ll say it’s not worse by quite a wee bit.
:smack: Brilliant, considering that’s not the negation I meant. (I’ll take “B-Day”:D)
Not sure how much Sisyphean mental gymnastics went behind transcribing (covering?) “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.