One person’s “most annoying holiday song” is another person’s “most treasured yuletide classic.” So consider the following not so much a definitive list of horrible tunes but rather six songs that drive one person slowly, surely insane.
“The Christmas Shoes” by NewSong
In perhaps the worst example of over-the-top schmaltzy crap insincerely packaged as holiday sentiment, a poor boy asks Santa to get his poor bedridden mom some new shoes before she dies poorly, his poor daddy blows up and the sun engulfs the poor earth while the poor kid has to eat the shoes as the cold cut platter to his own poor funeral. Or something like that.
“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” by Elmo & Patsy
I’m sure I enjoyed this song the first time I heard it. And the fifth time. And maybe even the tenth time. But then after that every time it was on I’d get anxious and confused. Then I’d hug my knees and rock back and forth, sobbing. Then I’d confess to crimes I didn’t commit or planned to but never got around to doing. Then came the multiple suicide attempts. All because the radio wouldn’t stop playing a heartwarming holiday song about an elderly alcoholic who dies from yuletide vehicular manslaughter.
“Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney
“Feliz Navidad” may be the most repetitive holiday song in that it consists of just two verses, sung alternately in Spanish and English. But somehow “Wonderful Christmastime” proves far more annoying by saying the line “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime” so often it’s as if someone is trying to plant a trigger phrase in a brainwashed captive’s head. Add to that lyrics so banal that it proves that without John Lennon around, Paul McCartney would write nothing but “Ding dong ding dong” for 18 verses if he could. This is a song that may not be the for the ages but feels as if it lasts for all time.
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” by Some Very Cruel Songwriter
Few songs sound like someone constantly reciting their shopping list while wandering the supermarket. (“Three cans of soup, two gallons of milk and the store-brand version of Cocoa Puffs.”) Even fewer songs detail a person’s disturbing obsession with poultry (partridge, doves, hens, calling birds, geese, swans). And even far fewer songs make you wonder what happens to all the people the person receives as gifts. Does she get to keep all those leaping lords, drumming drummers and ladies dancing forever? Are they her slaves now? Do they ever get to go home again? One may never know.
“Dominick the Donkey” by Lou Monte
You see, Santa’s reindeer can’t climb the hills of Italy for reasons that can best be described as “Because.” So instead, Ol’ St. Nick uses a little donkey named Dominick who…I’m sorry. I can’t even finish this description. With lyrics that consist almost entirely of “hee-haw, hee-haw” and a story that would make even the cast of “The Jersey Shore” say, “Now THAT’S an Italian stereotype,” this may be the one song that actually makes me want to go back and hear if that poor kid got those Christmas shoes for his poor bedridden mom before the bank foreclosed on her poor bed.
“Santa Baby” Cover Version by Madonna
The original version of “Santa Baby” is a true classic because it was sung by Eartha Kitt, whose voice was so weird you could never quite tell if Santa was being hit on a by an alien or a cat that suddenly learned to talk. But replace Kitt’s intergalactic purr with Madonna’s Marilyn Monroe impersonation by way of helium gas overdose and you have a song about greed so hideous it could reignite the “Occupy Wall Street” movement simply against the Material Girl herself.
What are your least favorite holiday songs? Let us know in the comments!
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