List of "Tired" Christmas Music (That Should Be Retired)

Self (Vanity)

[SamAdams76]

The Christmas season is upon us once again and the sounds of holiday music can be heard in shopping malls, restaurants, and other public places. Radio stations are already slipping the occasional Christmas song into their playlists and by mid-December, it will be wall-to-wall Christmas music.

Now that is not a bad thing. I like Christmas music. I collect Christmas music. Later in the Christmas season, I will post a vanity on my favorite Christmas music and that post promises to be much longer than this one.

But why is it that so many tired and really annoying Christmas songs seem to get the most airplay? Is it just me or does it seem like the radio stations play the same few Christmas songs 90% of the time?

On this thread, I will list some of my least favorite or more accurately, the most tired Christmas songs of alltime and will seek your input. I put a lot of thought into putting this list together. You are welcome to disagree with me and/or list a few really tired Christmas songs of your own.

Surely there are worse Christmas songs out there than the ones I am about to list. But I kept my list to songs that are familiar and that get a lot of airplay. The emphasis here on on "tired" rather than "bad." Also, to make my list, the song must have been out for at least five years. These songs have established some longevity of being really tired. I am listing the ones that have been "in our face" year after year. Without so much great material out there (I'll have a separate post on that closer to Christmas), there is no excuse for radio stations not to pursue fresher material.

So in no particular order, here goes...the most "tired" Christmas songs of alltime.

• Elmo & Patsy - Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. Now I'm not normally a violent person. But if somebody was to shoot the person who wrote this song, it would be okay by me. This has got to be absolutely the most annoying Christmas Song I have ever heard. It stopped being funny sometime around 1984. Yet year after year, radio stations seem to play it at least once every hour. Many a Christmas compilation album has been ruined for me by the inclusion of this tired ditty.
  

• Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song. Okay, maybe it was funny the first 232 times I heard it. But this song has really run its course and it should be retired. And to add insult to injury, Sandler released a "sequel" version of this song a few years ago but it already seems like 20 years ago. It's just not "funakah" to hear this anymore.
  

• The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping. Many, many years ago, back when Ronald Reagan used to refer to Russia as the "Evil Empire," it was cool to play this record at Christmas. It was cutting edge and having this song in your Christmas collection separated you from the Perry Como and Bing Crosby crowd. Well it's not cutting edge, cool or "New Wave" anymore. It's as mainstream as Garth Brooks and as dull as Peter Jennings. Give this record a rest, please.
  

• Jose Feliciano - Feliz Navidad. Must be a "PC" thing because the song itself is lame. Okay, okay, so it's politically correct to be "diverse" and know "Merry Christmas" in 17 different languages. So Buon Natale to you then, I am putting a contract out on this record. I am going to have it inserted into a block of wet cement and send it to the bottom of Boston Harbor. At least the Italians know what to do when something becomes tired and no longer "useful." Time for some new Christmas material from Mexico, and fast.
  

• Cheech & Chong - Santa And His Old Lady. Cheech: "Like I PLAYED with that dude, man." Chong: "Whoa, like Santa Claus ain't no musician, man!" Cheech: "I'm hip, man, like that dude couldn't play for beans, man!" Well I'm hip to Cheech & Chong. They can't play for beans and they aren't funny anymore to boot. Were these guys EVER funny? Must have been a 70s thing.
  

• Band-Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas? Not only was this song a blatant rip-off of "We Are The World" (or maybe it was vice versa) but the question the song poses is ridiculous. Of course they don't know it's Christmas, and they probably couldn't give a shit either. Until this year, did we ever know it was Ramadan over there? And that "Feed The World" chorus, well, here it is 15 years later and the people are still starving over there. Guess it makes liberals feel good to sing the song though. Like the next one on my list...
  

• John & Yoko - Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Maybe it's the spelling of Christmas that irks me most about this record. Didn't this song start the whole loathsome "Xmas" thing? Anyway, you can be sure that this song will get even heavier airplay this Christmas season in light of the current war situation. But I'm so tired of this song already!
  

• Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Okay, I like Bruce Springsteen. But I still think he could have picked a better Christmas song to cover. Or even have done an original. Anyway, I was already tired of this song by 1979.

I could think of a few more but I'm going to let my fellow Freepers get a crack at adding to the list of "tired" Christmas music.

[foreverfree]

"We are the world" ... was a worse song than "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

And "Do They Know ..." wasn't the best of songs, though it had a good beat to it. I was in a record store in a mall in PA in mid-1985, 6 months after (or before) Christmas, and the Band Aid tune was still in the racks, the sign below it's cubbyhole altered to read, "Do They Know It's NOT Christmas?"

Slightly off topic, I have a "We are the World" story too. I was in a bar once, and the synthesizer player was playing "WATW" and people were actually slow dancing like it's a love song, which it isn't.

Getting back to tired Christmas tunes, I don't really much care for "Grandma..." either. Perhaps because I don't get the notion of old ladies being trampled on by large bucks, from Milwaukee or elsewhere.

foreverfree

[SamAdams76]

Did you know that Mannheim Steamroller has a new CD out this year? It's called Christmas Extraordinare. I have already listened to it several times and if you are a fan of their previous stuff, you'll like this one.

[Marauder]

Another so-called classic I don't care for is Orbison's "Pretty Paper."

If you think that's bad, listen to that tune by Willie Nelson.

[Revolting cat!]

Why don't you start that thread on your favourites (or ping me when you do.) I love great original Christmas music and have a record store near me that stocks a lot of interesting cut-out CD's real cheap, $2-5, and some mainstream used ones for not much more! This year I'm looking for Fats Domino's Christmas album that he's recorded quite recently, within the last 5 years, I think.

[Doc On The Bay]

I don't recognise most of the songs you refer to--I DO recognise the "Springsteen" "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

MUCH "XMAS MUSIC" is "DRECK!"--the "Springsteen" is, however, a "Classic!"

Twenty+ years ago, I recorded a tape of Xmas music for my (soon-to-be-wife, Noel).

The "Springsteen" is there (it IS a "Classic")--along with a large number of seldom heard carols & songs:"Hodie, Christus Natus;" "The Friendly Beasts," Benjamin Britten's "Ceremony of Carols," & MANY others--including the (was it Emerson Lake & Palmer?) Wonderfully cynical, "They told me of Peace on Christmas--the Christmas you Have, You Deserve!" Magnificent Orchestral Piece using the London Symphony Orchestra!

To this Day, my "XMas Tape" is played--Despite my protests!

Doc

[general_re]

"Carol of the Bells" is, I believe, the work of that most prolific of composers - "Traditional" ;)

I have a few versions handy - Canadian Brass, Mannheim Steamroller, Mormon Tabernacle. Those three are all pretty good.

[ErnBatavia]

What the hell - I still like Adam Sandler and "put on your Yamaha".....

[Marauder]

"Oh Holy Night"

I like Placido Domingo's version of that, and another one I like is Harry Belafonte's "Mary's Boy Child".

[Interesting Times]

*OK. Not sure of the title but it was about snoopy and the red barron in a dog fight. And altho he shoots snoopy down he does not kill him.Closing lyric is something "merry Christmas my friend"*

That would be "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron" by the Royal Guardsmen from 1967. It was a big chart hit as well. I haven't heard that song on the radio in quite a while but I have it on a couple of compilations.

Nope. "Snoopy's Christmas" (Christmas bells, those Christmas bells, ringing through the land, bringing peace to all the world, and good will to man) was a sequel to "Snoopy and the Red Baron" (Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more, the bloody Red Baron was rolling up the score... eighty men died trying to end that spree, of the bloody Red Baron of Germany), also done by the Royal Guardmen, the lead singer of whom later transmogrified himself into 'Lobo' ("Me 'n You and a Dog Named Boo", and "I Love You Too Much to Ever Start Liking You").

Whether or not this was an improvement is still bitterly debated in pop circles.

That to the side, "Snoopy's Christmas" is relatively innocuous, and should be removed from the Christmas Song Death List...

(As a parenthetical aside, it concerns me somewhat that I know this stuff off the top of my head.)

[rightofrush]

Rudolf the Red Nosed Raindeer - I can't believe that this piece of dreck hasn't been named in the first 6 posts!

[WIladyconservative]

Hands down, gotta go, gonna tear my hair out if I hear it once more and it's not even December yet . . . . Elvis - Blue Christmas . . .GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGG!

I can say that, I was born on his birthday . . . .

[foreverfree]

The Bing Crosby & David Bowie duet of "The Little Drummer Boy" is particularly loathsome, especially with that "Peace On Earth" crud interjected at random. Ugh. Bing musta been hitting the bottle hard that year.

Interesting sidenote on this. The song was recorded on September 11, 1977 and Bing died just a month later,

Another interesting sidenote for the conventional history minded (no, not that one - DON'T get started, FReepers). Bing and Bowie cut "...Drummer Boy" on the bicentennial day of the Battle of the Brandywine in Chadds Ford, PA.

foreverfree

[Sueann]

No, I didn't know - thanks for the info - Mannheim will be here in San Diego on December 4th for a concert. I'm planning on treating myself to a performance. Have never seen them live, but Rush says it's a trip!!

[starxmtn]

I have an old Alan Jackson cassette around here somewhere with "Please Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas" on it. Now thats a classic!

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

The Christmas Song

Nobody does 'The Christmas Song' like it's composer, the Velvet Fog himself.

[Sueann]

One of my favorites is their slow version of Jingle Bells - such a different style - I love it.

[SamAdams76]

Why don't you start that thread on your favourites (or ping me when you do.)

I am putting together a rather large posting on this and expect to have it out around the 15th of December. In fact, I may have to break it into two separate postings, secular and traditional, as my Christmas collection is HUGE!

[Utah Girl]

The worst Christmas album is Barbra Streisand's first Christmas album called "Christmas Album" (how original.) All the songs are absolutely frantic. I worked in a pharmacy to put myself through college and the store manager loved this album. It'll be too soon if I ever hear it again...

And my favorite Christmas music would be the Carpenter's Christmas CDs and Kurt Bestors Christmas CDs.

[retrokitten]

(As a parenthetical aside, it concerns me somewhat that I know this stuff off the top of my head.)

Wow. I thought I knew a lot of useless crap. I bow down to the master.

[muawiyah]

Retail at Christmas? Muzac attack. 12 years later you are still suffering. If you can imagine, we had the chicken contract for the New York World's Fair back in the early '60s. Cook it by the ton. Freeze it. Bread it. Send it to New York.

I couldn't eat chicken for nearly 15 year after that!