It certainly is, which is a little puzzling, since it’s not about Christmas, and apart from the lyric about “brown paper packages tied up with strings,” doesn’t even have any particularly Christmas-y imagery. And really, “brown paper packages” aren’t exactly festive, are they? Okay, I guess there’s “sleighbells,” too, but that’s not a lot to hang an association with Christmas on.
This usage of the song isn’t especially new, though. Barbra Streisand included “My Favorite Things” on her Christmas album in 1967, for example, and I don’t think she was the first. According to wikipedia, Julie Andrews sang it on the Christmas episode of The Garry Moore Show in 1961 (four years before she had been cast in the movie).
Snowflakes on green trees and tinsel on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my Christmasy things
Cream-colored mixed drinks and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my Christmasy things
Girls in white dresses with red satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my Christmasy things
When the TV reruns
When the Grinch comes
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my Christmasy things
And then I don’t feel so bad
No you’re not. You’re defending the song against all comers because for some reason you do not understand the concept of taste. If you actually wanted to understand you wouldn’t have poisoned the well by describing the perfectly normal act of disliking a song as “misplaced hatred” in your thread title.
The Little Drummer Boy is an annoyingly weird Christmas song. For people who enjoy it, that is fine, but if you don’t like it, for whatever reason, it is so unusual it intrudes into your mind in a way songs that are more conventional do not.
Well yes I did come here to defend the song. That was the point. I find it no more mentally intrusive than many other Christmas songs, and I think there is a lot more going on with it that transcends being irked by rumpa pum pum.
It’s a fallacy that argumentum ad populum applies here.
This is not a matter of logical argument or scientific fact. It’s a matter of taste and opinion, so the fact that large numbers of people happen like it is highly relevant.
My list of “favorite” Christmas music starts with “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys and ends with a capella renditions of “Silent Night.” Everything else can go hang.
Well, altho not Christmasy, it does have a lot of Winter imagery: Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,Doorbells and sleigh bells,Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
So I guess it can be considered a winter seasonal song.
Hardly against “all comers” quite a few people here like it, unless played too often.
And I kinda gather a few posters dislike any carol with religious imagery.
Your opinion is that it’s "annoyingly weird " but Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man. (Note you stated it as a fact). IMHO it’s charming (unless played too often).
Sure,** you** dont like it, but we can take pretty much any song, start a thread about it, and get plenty of haters.
The premise of this thread is that so many people dislike this song. So which is it? The very many people who like the song outnumber the apparently too many people who dislike the song? That’s a silly way of reaching a conclusion. Questions of taste can’t be weighed on a scale to determine which side has more support.
Well, here’s the point: People love to hate Christmas songs. There are countless memes and articles about which Christmas songs are the worst,or how horrible Mariah’s song is or whatever. It seems to be a thing.
But honestly, I think there isnt as much “hatred” as professed. Or perhaps there are people who hate the whole season, and they attack the songs.
That cartoon unfortunately omits Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” which I confess is my most-recently-released favorite Christmas song.
Not me, I came into this thread specifically to say that not even Pentatonix could make that turkey fly. Musically boring, repetitive, simplistic, treacly message. Blah.
The Bowie/Bing version is great. (We like to act out the whole skit, too. Because of course David Bowie would live up the road and need to borrow Bing’s “pie-anny.”)
I forgot all about Grace Jones and Pee-wee, which was a wondrous sight.
I can’t handle the satanic earworm that is Feliz Navidad.
Interesting. I recently learned (while looking for a simple Thanksgiving song to use in a game I play) that Jingle Bells was written for Thanksgiving. You are, however, the first person I’ve ever met who associates it with Thanksgiving and not Christmas.
I’m pretty sure the reason is the associate with snow. Any song related to snow tends to be connected with Christmas, since it is near the winter solstice. Around here, that arctic cold snap was the first time in a while that I remember getting snow before Thanksgiving–but I assume that’s not the case further north.
Edit: I also note that the French version I learned as a kid is clearly more associated with Christmas. The lyrics, translated, are
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle through the night.
Father Christmas and his great helpers arrive in the sled.
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle through the night.
The Miracle will begin. Come all ye little ones.
Oops. I forgot that I asked about that last line before, and found out that I had originally mistranslated it. It’s “The Miracle will begin in dreams of little ones.”
So it’s about them dreaming about “the Miracle,” not them coming to see the Miracle. That said, I’m unclear on what “le Miracle” is, as I associate that term with the "“Le Miracle de Saint Nicolas,” but that would be celebrated before Christmas and before Father Christmas arrives.
I can envisage LDB as the soundtrack of a weird pr0n film. “Cum, they told me, ha-rump-a-rump-rumm”. But keep the reindeer, oxen, and lambs away. Except at dinnertime.
LDB is earbait that, to me, wears out its welcome faster than most. Where are the Swingin’ Saturnalia songs?
Maybe I conflated “Jingle Bells” with “over the river and through the woods” And I used to sing the latter when we went to my grandmother’s for Thanksgiving.