Christmas Song Musings

December 12th, 2005

Filed under: General

In my humble opinion, the worst Christmas song ever is Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys.
Why? For starters, it’s overplayed — every store and radio station that believes itself to be hip plays it — and it’s even in a Coca-cola ad now (and don’t those penguins realize that polar bears eat penguins?). But most of all, it’s for that fact that it contains the most banal line in any Christmas song, ever:

Christmas comes this time each year

No duh.

My favorites?
I’m partial to the Boss’s version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Burl Ives’s Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. My favorite is the Bing Crosby/David Bowie duet of Little Drummer Boy. While it’s a cleverly written duet, I just love the juxtaposition of the ultra straight-laced Crosby (remember that SNL sketch “The Crosby Show”?) singing with Ziggy Stardust himself.

UPDATE:
Chris takes on another horrible Christmas song, Christmas Shoes, over at his blog. I had totally forgotten that one, but he’s right, that song’s sugary enough to cause diabetes in listeners. Thankfully it’s not played as much as Little Saint Nick.

7 Responses to “ Christmas Song Musings ”

  1. Sig
    December 12th, 2005 at 11:46 am

    Oh, I dunno. There may be a new worst-ever: while waiting in the theatre to see Goblet of Fire, the quasi-musak played a new song from Captain & Tenille (!) which combines Christmas smaltz with some really atrocious lines about missing troops sent abroad…. It’s everything you’ve come to fear from pop music.

    I was just about to write it off as a waking nightmare, but no, here it is, “Saving Up Christmas.” Makes “Muskrat Love” sound like Beethoven’s Ninth.

  2. Jonathan Miller
    December 12th, 2005 at 1:28 pm

    I think the real issue is that polar bears live in the Arctic area and penguins live in the Antarctic area. Far from eating penguins, polar bears should pretty much never encounter them! (A friend of mine and I, upon seeing that commercial, decided that the polar bear family must be on a vacation to the South Pole.)

  3. Scott
    December 12th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
    Official Comment

    Jonathan,

    Damn, you’re right. For some reason I was thinking that polar bears ate penguins. Oh well.

  4. M
    December 12th, 2005 at 3:44 pm

    Don’t feel too bad Scott, I’m pretty sure polar bears would eat penguins if they got a chance. “Tastes like chicken! And whale blubber!”

    Music wise, I don’t like Springsteen’s, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ but agree with you about the rest. I was just thinking yesterday how stupid ‘little saint nick’ was “Saint Nick for Deuce Coupe? WT?”. Then the Springsteen song came on and I thought, “There’s another song that didn’t really need to be made.”

    Anyway Merry Merry whatever to all.
    And for me Annie Lennox’s cover of ‘Winter Wonderland’ is right up there with the LDB.

  5. Mikester
    December 12th, 2005 at 3:50 pm

    I got so tired of hearing everyone else’s Christmas music that I made my own holiday mix disc…”Lonely Christmas” by Sloppy Seconds is probably my favorite.

  6. Lea
    December 15th, 2005 at 8:45 am

    A Very Special Christmas is probably the best Xmas album ever, even with the clunkers. Sting’s “Gabriel’s Message” is gorgeous.

  7. Scott
    December 15th, 2005 at 9:13 am
    Official Comment

    That is a good album. I like the Keith Haring cover as well as (most of) the music. I’ve always been a big fan or Haring.

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