I don’t think I ever actually listened to “Christmas Shoes” before. I made it to 1:42 before I had to exit the video.
I’m clearly wasting my time on the songs I’m writing–I need to cash in with a number about how Lincoln’s mother’s puppy sacrifices his life to get a coat for a raggedy, consumptive little slave orphan who is actually baby Jesus…
Never heard of this, but it sounds awesome.
I have a - controversial, perhaps - theory that the people that like it, like it because in the song poor people behave like they should. They don’t try to steal, they don’t get angry at your condescension, they don’t rant about how their life sucks, how profit-centered amoral healthcare is fucking *killing *their mother - they just bring up shoes to the register, blissfully ignorant of how money works.
Notice the guy doesn’t go back with the kid to check everything out, to see if better care will help her, or even just to be with the kid. He just pays for the shoes, sends the kid off, and feels like he’s really helped his fellow man without getting his hands dirty.
Christmas Shoes appeals to the sizeable Glurge Market. The people who like it have big ugly inflatable snowmen on their lawns and have Thomas Kincaide landscapes (with little twinkling lights set in them, yes, I’ve seen such a thing!) on their walls. That’s a whole other thread - the empire of bad taste.
If I had a front lawn I’d have inflatable ornaments! A bunch of them. My neighbors would hate me (even more.)
I’m surprised it took three pages, but:
Mary’s Boy-Child by Boney M has got to be the worst Christmas song ever performed!
Sounds like a great addition to The Institute of Official Cheer.
Stranger
You know, Pandora has a Christmas music station; you can vote thumbs-down on any song you don’t like and they won’t play it again.
It occurs to me that maybe some of the problem with Christmas music is that a lot of the classic Christmas carols and songs were recorded by people who are dead now. Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Gene Autry, Mel Torme, Perry Como – dead. Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Brenda Lee are still with us, of course, but except for Mr. Bennett I don’t think they’re performing any more. That leaves us with Barbra Streisand, Madonna, Amy Grant, Harry Connick and Straight No Chaser 
…and “Christmas Shoes.”
The thing kind of reminded me of the joke whose punchline is "…and Saint Peter said, ‘Give him his quarter back and tell him to go to Hell.’ "
Like that episode of Roseanne, where the neighborhood decreed only tasteful white lights and Dan and Roseanne put up a Harriet Carter catalog horrorshow.
Mustn’t forget: http://uglychristmaslights.com
I’ll-uh have-uh a-uh Blooo (ah woo oo oo oo) Christmas (ah woo oo oo oo) without you…
I know people love Elvis, but jeezopete, that is the most annoying song in the world to me. I never make it farther than that before I change the the station. Those ah woo oo oo oo interludes make me want to cut a bitch. Jeezopete.
That is one thing I have never understood and irritates the heck out of me every time I hear it in a block of Christmas music. How is “My Favorite Things” a Christmas song?! There is no mention of Xmas in the Sound of Music, or in the song. Xmas presents aren’t usually in brown paper, or tied with string. Is it the mittens? I don’t get how it became a Christmas song.
“Snowflakes on my nose and eyelashes”
Snow is mentioned therefore it’s a Christmas song.
Banish all christmas songs except Spinal Taps’ ‘chistmas with the devil’.
Biffy the Elephant Shrew - Here you go - Blue Christmas by Porky Pig.
StG
I think someone did, but I’ll just underline it a bit. We went to Wal*Mart on the week-end because my wife decided that our souls aren’t quite black enough, and they piped in an ersatz version of this abomination. It’s still stuck in my head, giving me random urges to set homeless people on fire.
I knew a kid back in junior high who decided one time to re-create Christmas in July. Put up a small Christmas tree in his room complete with fake wrapped presents underneath it and, worst of all, played Christmas music all day and night. He was a friend’s older brother, and we could hear the non-stop carols emanating from his room on those sweltering West Texas days. The last I heard, and this was just a few short years ago, he ended up some ne’er-do-well with serious mental, alcohol and drug issues.
I think it was the Christmas music what did it.
Mary Did You Know is one I can’t stand. You would think Gabriel would have filled Mary in a little bit when he asked her if she’d have the baby, so yes, she probably did know. End of song.
Bob Geldof, writer of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, regrets it.
Feliz Navidad can kiss my happy ass.