A few friends and I recently had this debate, and I thought I’d throw it out to the people here. What is the WORST holiday song you’ve ever had the “pleasure” of hearing. I’m not talking songs that are supposed to be bad or tasteless, like the Dr. Demento songs, but songs that are supposed to actually be good, but just aren’t.
The two nominations we came up with are Ricky Martin’s “Ay Yi Yi It’s Christmas,” with the chorus of “ay yi yi it’s Christmas and I don’t know what to do/ ay yi yi it’s Christmas and I have no gift for you” (going from memory, so I might be a bit off); and the Christian rock group New Song’s song called “Christmas Shoes” that’s just so freaking sappy as to be horrible – it involved a man at a store approached by a young boy who wants to buy new shoes for his mother so she’ll look pretty when she dies and goes to heaven to see Jesus on his birthday, but he has no money.
“Granma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” ought to be against the law. And what’s with that song that goes “It’s Christmas time, so hang up your sock…Doop de dooo…and woop de deee”
The recent remake of the already perfect Charlie Brown Christmas, now featuring Vennesa Williams (?!)
Celine Dion’s cover of John Lennon’s Happy Christmas
Mariah Carrey’s cover of Baby Please Come Home
Madonna’s ridiculously whiny interpretation of Eartha Kitt’s wonderful Santa Baby.
Perhaps most tragically, the recent butchering of Fairytale Of New York, originally performed by The Pogues and the recently deceased Kirsty MacColl, now done by some ex Boyzone member.
I love a good cover tune, but these are just painful and IMHO heresy.
Dire Wolf—Yes! When I was in elementary school, I hated Little Drummer Boy, and I still do, now that I’m three times and change as old as I was then.
Other horrible Christmas songs are Jingle Bell Rock and Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney. Horrible! I hate both of them so much!
Perhaps the ultimate horrible Christmas song is the one that came out circa 1988, Dear Mr. Jesus. It was a treacly song about child abuse. It didn’t seem like a Christmas song, per se, but it got most of its airplay around Christmastime, so it was a sort of de facto Christmas song. It was horrible. I haven’t heard it for years, but it still haunts me.
The one I love to hate is “Mary’s Boy Child”. For reasons not clear to me, every Norwegian singer who fancies him/herself a “serious artist” has to record his/her own interpretation of this song. The worse the accent of the singer, the more airplay it will get. Die, die, DIE!
And when did that Sound of Music song about a few of my favorite things become a Christmas song? I heard it once with an unidentified male singer trying to make it sound sexy. He came off as more than a bit creepy when he got to the line about how much he likes “Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes”. :eek:
I was at a craft show several years ago, and the organizers of the show had only one tape of holiday music, so all of us vendors got to hear the same thing all day long. Ever hear of a song called “Thistlehair, the Christmas Bear”? It’s a country song. I don’t know who the recording artist is. God Damn, what an awful song. It ran though my head for weeks. AAAUUUUGGGHHH!!
I also hate Paul McCartney’s “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime”.<<<<shivers with revulsion>>>>
On this page, there are some Christmas songs that are terrible. I’m not sure where I got the link (maybe off a post here?). Yes, its cruel…but morbidly funny, too.
BAH!
With or without Yoko, this song’s a classic. (Though it’d be better sans Yoko) And while I’m at it, let me just say that I really dig the Little Drummer boy too! (Joan Jett and Bowie have both done great covers of this) Hell, I even dig Wonderful Christmas Time. If only in a cheesy, synth kinda way.
I nominate the entire wretched Boney M Christmas album, inflicted upon me as a small child by a smugly, tone-deaf father (“It’s MY turntable and I’ll play whatever I want!!!”). Flodnak, you have not truly suffered until you have heard their version of Mary’s Boy Child.
“Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas” - thanks, but I’ll have any kind of freakin’ Christmas I want! This song always makes me think of rich, snooty people who find poor people “quaint”.
My favorite of all time is “Walkin’ Round in Women’s Underwear” (to the tune of Walkin’ In a Winter Wonderland"). I sing this all the time at Christmas - just makes the yuletide bright for me.
“Lacy things…missin’
Didn’t ask…permission
I’m wearing her clothes
Her silk pan-ty-hose
Walkin’ round in women’s underwear” and so on.
I had to work at our company’s bookstore last week, and they were playing some God-awful Christmas album by the Beach Boys. (Matter of fact, I think it might have actually been called “The Beach Boys’ God-awful Christmas Album”.) Some songs had orchestral accompaniment which made the songs even more mind-bending.