In honor of the season, I present:
Songs that should be banned from Christmas airwaves
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Anything by the Beach Boys. I mean, no amount of jingle bells can make the Beach Boys sound Christmasy. It’s just annoying.
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Most of the 96 million versions of “Feliz Navidad.” It’s not the song itself I object to, it’s proliferation of really hokey versions. Do they play them in a misguided attempt to appear multicultural?*
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“Jingle Bell-(hiccup), Jingle Bell-(hiccup) Rock.” Hall & Oates have their place in pop history, but this version makes me want to run down the street shrieking in agony.
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“I’ll ha-ave a-a Blue Christmas…” Need I say more?
For some reason I cannot fathom, at least one of these songs, and usually more, play every single time I turn on the radio. Of all the thousands of versions of hundreds of Christmas songs out there, every single station feels a need to play these three songs five to ten times a day an hour. Can someone explain this to me?
Then there’s Rudolph. Julianna’s bus driver decorated her bus with red and green streamers and hung gold ornaments from the center. (We have an awesome bus driver.) She also perched a plush singing reindeer on the dashboard. Voila, Julianna has a new favorite song. She asks for it like this:
So I’ve been singing Rudolph several times a day hour for the last week or so. And being a song writer myself (albeit nowhere near as successful), every time I do, I gnash my teeth. What were you thinking, Johnny Marks? “Do you recall the most famous reindeer of all”? Come on, if we know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen, why would you even ask if we know the most famous reindeer of all?*
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that particular little bug off my chest, it’s your turn. What songs do you think need to be banished from the December airwaves?
*In posting, I discovered that Feliz Navidad has ITS OWN TAG on Word Press. What the…?????!!!!!
**Disclaimer: yes, I know it’s a song to introduce a reindeer nobody had ever heard of. Fully aware. Leave me alone. I’m ranting.
Kathleen M. Basi 
I am sooooooo there with you. Michael Bolton in general is on my list, anything about burning desires and love being like a holiday should be banned. And, just bc you can throw your voice into a million different octaves doesn’t mean you should – ala Christina Aguliera and Maria Carey.
ROFLOL! And I thought I was on a rant! hehehehe
I’m totally with you on all that, but most especially on Michael Bolton.
I agree with your rant of all the above cringe-worthy songs, and… I would like to add that I NEVER want to hear “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas” ever, ever again! J.’s picture with the finger antlers is ADORABLE!
Emma and Andrew have a Disney Christmas CD…I do not recommend it. There is a whole world of perfectly fine secular Christmas music that they could have chosen, but instead they chose to take beautiful sacred Christmas carols and change the words to make them “Disney.” You can imagine how terrible this is. “Away in a Manger” becomes a song about a homeless dog who is “mangy”.
Seriously.
Forgive me if I laugh over the mangy manger… although it does sound awful. 😛
My daughter and I were discussing those KidzBop and Disney albums, and why I dislike them. They usually take popular songs from adult radio that aren’t appropriate for kids, and simply alter the lyrics.
I’ve heard drug-references, adultery, you name it… disguised with “kid-friendly” lyrics, but it only encourages the children to seek out the real songs.
Let kids be kids, and leave the adult songs alone.
*steps sheepishly down from soapbox*
Clearly, I should be on my knees thanking God that I have not heard what Kelley and Janelle are talking about. You’ll forgive me if I DON’T run to YouTube to look it up. 🙂
Beach Boys, ugh, although I do like Rudolph. Agreed about the Mariah Carey-esque versions of everything. Terrible. For me, it’s the ones by the Shirelles and the Ronettes and Donettes and all those similar groups. Don’t know why but they are NAILS ON CHALKBOARDS for me. Hate ’em all. (Whoops, Christmas spirit, huh?)
I second that list and I would add “Baby It’s Cold Outside” by Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart. Because…EW!!!!
(Amy–what you said!!)
Also–Dominic the Christmas Donkey, and that annoying Paul McCartney thing about “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”
On the other hand, I never tire of “I want a hippopotomus for Christmas.”
Blue Christmas, on the other hand, always reminds me of Picket Fences–they had this great Christmas episode where the coroner character and his brother (played by Charles Martin Smith, who is awesome) lost their mom at Christmastime, and the episode ended with the two of them sitting at the piano together sadly singing that song. Replaced any other version in my mind forevermore. It was actually quite lovely and touching.
Now THAT was a good, albeit bizarre, series.
I’ve always loathed Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” … I guess, because I could imagine him swinging his hips and trying to sexify a sad song. The lyrics don’t warrant that.
But my all-time cringeworthy carol? Barbara Streisand’s “My Favorite Things”, which I know isn’t technically a Christmas song at all, but they play it ad nauseum each holiday.
Her take on this song is mournful and almost suicidal.
In context, it is supposed to be cheerful and upbeat – “I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad” – but it sounds as if raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens might encourage her to jump off the balcony.
HAHAH! This is absolutely the best set of comments I have ever gotten on my blog. Thank you all!
Why don’t those evil giants at the record companies and radio stations listen to US??????
Also I hate “grandma got run over by a reindeer”. Why make public the family drunkenness?
There are so many GREAT Christmas songs- there’s no excuse for bad ones
“Baby it’s Cold Outside” I think it’s like Dean Martin and Sandra Dee, or something. I can’t take it when she sings: “My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious.”
I don’t think that line was every hip, even in the swell 1940’s.
Also, any carol by a late nineties boy band is…banned.
The Catholic girl in me will always love Nat King Cole’s Adeste Fideles! Sing it, Nat.