Christmas Carols That Suck, and Other Musings

Hell yes.

I really wanted to say something profound about the Occupy Wall Street movement, but instead I'll share my opinions about the Christmas songs I do (and do not) like.

(As I was thinking about which songs would fall into which category, I discovered that the Onion's AVClub wrote a similar article. I have not read it yet, but you have my permission to do so.)

It's a little harder to create these lists than in years past because now I listen to Pandora — I'm tuned to the "Dean Martin (Holiday)" channel — so I'm able to get my fill of the songs I like without having to endure the crap that I used to face when I'd listen to the streaming versions of the radio stations pumping out all-Christmas tunes this time of year.


With that in mind, I'll ignore most of the holiday novelty songs — though it could be argued that nearly every holiday song is a kind of novelty song. Two songs I completely despise are "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and "Dominick the Donkey." I think I liked "Grandma" for about 10 minutes after I first heard it, sometime in 1984, then began to feel as if I were run over by a hoofed beast every time the song came on the radio.

I regard "Dominick" a little higher, only because it's sung by Lou Monte, who sang a bunch of Italian-ish songs that were played on the Italian-themed radio show that my father would play on Sunday mornings. Dad controlled the radio back then, unlike today, where I somehow give in when my kids demand to hear "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz ten times in a row on my iPod, and what the hell is Taio Cruz doing on my iPod anyway?

Lou Monte also sang a popular novelty hit called "Lazy Mary," about, well, you can figure it out. If you can't...:

Lou Monte's songs always made me think that Italian-Americans were supposed to talk-a like-a thees, like-a Chico Marx (who was, in fact, not Italian). He had one of those old-school Brooklyn (or Bronx or whatever) accents that you'll hear on a guy like Pat Cooper or That Guy At Work who does really bad impressions but thinks he's really funny. (At my office, That Guy is me.)

I don't know whether Lou Monte is one of the best or one of the worst representations of Italian-American culture, but as was the case with The Sopranos, most of my tribe seemed to like him. But the guy actually sang a song called "Shaddap You Face," so I don't know if he embraced nostalgia or helped encouraged Italian-American stereotypes that thankfully I don't really experience much during my lifetime except in Spike Lee movies.

WASN'T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT CHRISTMAS MUSIC?
Oh yeah. So. The "Dean Martin (Holiday)" channel helps me avoid dreck like the songs I mentioned above, but it does include one of my least-favorite Christmas songs of all time, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Betty Lee. The song is very much overplayed, but if I turned it off at a holiday party I'd probably have to face a firing squad because for many people, this song is Christmas, twangy guitars and Brenda's hiccupy "Ev-a-ry cou-a-ple try-ies to stop" like she's Elvis or Gene Pitney.

Fortunately, Pandora allows me to "thumbs down" a song and banish it for a while. Curiously, my channel plays other Brenda Lee Christmas songs, such as "Jingle Bells," and they're not so bad.

Every December, I wish those
conspiracies were true and
you really were dead.

There are two songs I loathe with every lump of coal that beats where my heart should be: "Jingle Bell Rock" (any version), as well as the worst Christmas song ever, which is "Wonderful Christmastime" by one-half of the remaining living Beatles.

"Wonderful" is a song that has hard-wired my reflexes to attempt to change the radio station as soon as I hear those opening echo-y bars, even if the radio is controlled by the driver of the crosstown bus I'm riding. I'm no musicologist, but I do have visceral opinions, and it is horribly, terribly wrong, from conception to execution, from that up-and-down chorus ("SIM-ply...HAV-a-VING...a WONderful CHRISTmas TIME"). It's the Bay of Pigs of Christmas music.

OH NO YOU DIH-INT
Ugh. I'm getting sick just trying to summon from memory all the crap that I can't stand. I'll just mention one other song that would probably make me retch egg nog:

"Christmas Dream," as I just learned when I tried to find the video on YouTube, was featured in the 1974 film The Odessa File, whose movie poster featured Jon Voight and a swastika. The song was written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber (insert your own snarky comment here) and is "about a struggle between a young German reporter and the ODESSA, an organization for ex-Nazis."

"Christmas Dream," which is sung by Como and backed up by "The London Boy Singers" (again, no comment from me) is the theme song of a movie about ex-Nazis.

I didn't know any of that when I was growing up; I simply grew tired of it because my mother, who loved the song, would play the A Perry Como Christmas album several times a day during the holidays. But if you like songs that feature an accordion and a chorus sung in German by a boys' choir, then put your feet up and grab your favorite schnitzel, because this one's for you! You can danke schön me later.

SO...WHAT DO YOU LIKE?
Glad you asked. But you'll have to wait for my next post. Spoiler alert: It's the most wonderful song of the year.