The worst Christmas song ever

[lizbee]

Debating the Worst Christmas Song Ever seems to be a new annual event.  The main contender as usual is "Baby, It's Cold Outside", though I personally like it, and I get irrationally pouty when people say its outdated rom-com tropes are literal references to date rape. 

(Thank you for not further debating the point in the comments.) 

(The ironic thing is that I first fell in love with the song via the video for the Tom Jones/Cerys Matthews version, even though that actually is quite rapey, and also choreographed in such a way that puts one in mind of Tom Jones performing oral sex.  AND I DO APOLOGISE FOR THAT MENTAL IMAGE.  But I managed to repress all the gross bits until YouTube came along and brought them back.)

"Santa Baby" is another one that I secretly love, even though its gender politics are dodgy and it generally leaves me wanting to go, "Honey, Santa Claus is not your sugar daddy, and now there's a queue of REALLY CONFUSED CHILDREN outside the grotto."  (Also, the video for Kylie Minogue's version is also TERRIBLE, and I was going to excuse it on account of it being the '90s, but no, apparently that was made in 2010.  Dear God.)

(And frankly, I feel like both of them have been RUINED FOREVER by Community's tribute to the Sexy And Disturbing Christmas Song Genre.  Boopy doopy doop doop sex.)

The Spice Girls cover of "Sleigh Ride" is pretty bad, mostly because it was obviously recorded with the bare minimum of production magic, and frankly, those girls can't sing.  The various Doctor Who Christmas special songs are generally terrible. 

But for my money, the very worst Christmas song of all is "Last Christmas".  I mean, here we have a song about a completely sociopathic nice guy moaning because his unsolicited gift of body parts was rejected.  "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, and the very next day, you gave it away."  Was this a consensual exchange of bloody hearts in boxes?  Not to mention the ethical questions inherent in the recipient's regifting of said organs.  THESE ARE THOUGHTS THAT STAY WITH ME THROUGH THE ENTIRE YEAR.

(Obviously the actual worst Christmas song of all time is "Christmas Shoes".  Which I've never even heard, but someone showed me the lyrics once, and now I plan to continue Never Hearing It Ever so as to not sully my delicate and fragile soul.)

Comments

[trouble]

I stand by my assertion that "simply having a wonderful Christmas time" is the worst Christmas song ever, but I don't know if it's played EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME in Australia as it is here in Canada.

[lizbee]

...Paul McCartney? Repetitive and '80s synth-heavy? I've only ever heard it in supermarkets ... but since I did two Christmas stints in supermarkets, it's definitely in my top 3 worst ever.

[icepixie]

I have a secret fondness for that song, because I sang it as a little kid in a show choir-type thing, and we had a really cool jazzy dance to go along with it. But I fully admit that my musical taste runs counter to many people's. :D

[rhivolution]

I just had a good rant about that song the other day on Twitter. It's just so very stunningly inane, isn't it?

[musesfool]

I HATE THAT SONG SO MUCH OMG! ABSOLUTELY IT IS THE WORST OF THE WORST.

[icepixie]

I was all set to comment with "CHRISTMAS SHOES OMG," and then I read your last paragraph. But yeah, that one. Ugh.

[trouble]

I am now grateful I have never heard of this song before.

[rhivolution]

Apparently Santa Baby in its original form was actually satiric? I'm not sure how much I buy it, though Eartha Kitt did know what she was talking about, I will give the blogpost writer some credit.

[lizbee]

I never imagined it wasn't satiric! I mean, what other interpretation is there?

[melwil]

Kate has a hatred for Little Donkey. I'm reserving mine for The Lonliest Christmas Tree and anything that played at the Myer Centre when I worked there

[rhivolution]

I would like to nominate Dominic the Christmas Donkey, which I never had heard until I spent winter in New England.

It's not really on the 'Wonderful Christmastime' level, but it's...special.

[starlady]

No, I still think I hate "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" the most.

[rj_anderson]

Actually, that is... yeah. Really good candidate for hatred there.

Also, "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth". Basically, any Christmas song which requires the singer to play the part of (or be) a six-year-old results in tooth grinding from this quarter.

[recessional]

Last Christmas was originally by a guy? Learn something every day - I ALWAYS hear it covered by whiny women. But I don't hate it for that so much as I hate it for the SHEER INANITY, TRITE RHYMES AND GENERAL ARTISTIC STUPIDITY of the lyrics.

Bad Xmas songs is why I have a 14hour long Xmas playlist of my own, scavanged from every corner I could find something in that I didn't hate. Because my family insists on playing Appropriate Music, and I insist that 99% of Xmas music makes me want to stab myself in the head with a spoon.

This makes for a REMARKABLY high quotient of explicitly Christian songs on a playlist by a henotheistic polytheist, but it's not my fault that secularist Xmas music has, for the most part, been utterly, utterly dire.

[lizbee]

I have a similar problem when I go home for Christmas -- my mother likes religious Christmas music, and I really hate her fundamentalist church music. Thank God for the Mediaeval Baebes and Tori Amos's Christmas album.

[fannishnonsense]

I don't know if it's the worst, but the Christmas song I hate the most is Feed The World (Let Them Know It's Christmas). It's just so obnoxious, and patronizing, and every time I hear it I want to punch everyone involved.

[lizbee]

I mentally replace it with "Sending Our Love Down the Well".

i want a hippopotamus for christmas

[prof_pangaea]

this is a song i never heard until last year at work. it plays several times. every. day.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/9RBZz730ibU

i still can't believe it's real.

Re: i want a hippopotamus for christmas

[lizbee]

THAT IS AMAZING! Why hasn't Glee or Disney's team of adolescent pop stars covered it?!

The week "End of Time" aired, I desperately wanted to make a DW Christmas specials vid to this.

[selvage]

I hate "Little Drummer Boy" and "Little Donkey". And I've never heard Christmas Shoes either, after hearing the outpourings of hatred about it I've avoided it like the plague.

However, a plug for good Christmas music: "Snow Angels" and "The Darkest Night Of The Year" by Over The Rhine, mostly original compositions. This is probably my favourite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Zu95cHK2U

[rj_anderson]

I cannot hate "Little Drummer Boy" because I saw Bing Crosby and David Bowie sing it live on the Bing Crosby Christmas Special the first time it aired oh dear heavens I am so old. But it was soooooo beautiful with the "Peace on Earth" part, and also BOWIE.

[sanj]

"Sleigh Ride." Without the lyrics, it's a derpy little school band number that makes the percussionists happy. The lyrics are possibly the most wonderbread blah thing to have ever come out of that era of secular carols. Bleh.

[kerravonsen]

I'm afraid "Santa Baby" is on my list of Worst Ever Christmas Songs. I'm not sure what's on the top of the list, but that one is definitely on the list.

[icepixie]

Ohhhh, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is high up on my list of hate too.

But I forgot about The Donkey Carol. Is there a stupider choral piece in existence? Is there? Because I don't think there is. Curse you, John Rutter.

[kerravonsen]

On a completely different note, sometimes a song can be made or broken by the performance.

One of my favourite Christmas performances ever is "Gabriel's Message" as performed by Sting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF2BzUDeTkY

And yet on the same album ("A Very Special Christmas") has to be the worst rendition of "Silent Night" I've ever heard, inflicted on the world by Stevie Nicks.

[copracat]

I actually love almost all Christmas songs. I have a huge collection of everything from serious business choral music to divas I normally wouldn't have in my music collection due to them being Celine Dion. Christmas music is the only genre in which I own novelty records. I could listen to ten versions of the same song in a row and count it forty-five minutes well spent.

In fact, this post has made me fire up the choral mix.

[capri0mni]

I've always hated "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer"-- ever since kindergarten. I didn't have the language, back then, to complain about able-bodied privilege and exploitation. But I always knew that's what the song is really about. Even at the end, when they all (supposedly) loved him, it was only because his physical difference was useful to them, and not because of his personhood. The worst was one year, when I had to be in the hospital for orthopedic surgery around Christmas, and they kept piping that song into the speakers in the children's ward to "cheer us up"

Ayggh! Do not want!!

[el_staplador]

Mistletoe and Wine. Firstly, it's Cliff bloody Richard. Secondly, the line about 'children singing Christian rhyme'. Which a) doesn't rhyme; b) they probably aren't, they're singing Jingle Bells or some other awful crap; c) the thought of children singing anything Christmassy makes me want to strangle somebody anyway.

I did not know that there were lyrics to Sleigh Ride. I am not going to go and seek them out. I quite like it when performed by our organist and scratch percussion ensemble, who are very good.

On the whole, though, I ignore the secular/pop stuff and mainly listen to The Messiah and 'Advent from $cathedral' because that is all awesome, and Advent has better music than Christmas anyway.

Christmas church music that I really hate: Hark the Herald (does terrible things to my ears) and the complete oeuvre of John Rutter.

[jesuswasbatman]

I was just about to add "Mistletoe and Wine": vapid and utterly dirgelike. John Rutter also sounds like Muzak to me.

[lydaclunas]

No loathing for "Feliz Navidad" yet? Maybe it's only in Texas where we get stuck with that heinous earworm all the time. I know there must be better Spanish Christmas carols out there, for the love.

[rj_anderson]

NOOOOOOOOOO! YOU INVOKED THE WORST CHRISTMAS EARWORM EVER!!!

*weeps and bangs head against the wall*

[mme_hardy]

I think "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is sexy as hell. Mmm, Eartha Kitt. When she sings anything, it's consensual.

[philippos42]

Hm. I'm pretty indifferent to Xmas songs, when I'm not annoyed in general. No, that's not it; I really try to avoid them. So I don't have any really bad ones in mind.

I went looking for a good track of Vanessa L. Williams singing "Baby It's Cold Outside," but only found one where I think she's good and the guy is relatively meh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uGoF4Uf6S4

Really, I mostly like ones with the Magi in them; which are technically Epiphany songs or something. I am deeply weird.
Do you know this one? It's by a couple of your countrymen, but I suspect that Steve Kilbey and Marty Willson-Piper are a bit disreputable....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FZEzXyEBzc "Lullaby"

[lemposoi]

Absolute fucking agreement on every point, except I've never even heard of Christmas Shoes, and now I'm not going to look into it any further.