What Holiday Song Annoys You?

[EddiesMom]

I'm not sure if it's a Christmas song, but I hear it all the time at Christmas. The one about the guy seeing his old girlfriend at the grocery store and they go out and drink beer in the car and then the snow turns into rain.  

Yeah, cheery.

"Same Auld Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. 

[GINO40]

Most of them annoy the heck out of me but these make me want to scream: "Have a holly jolly Christmas"  and "Jingle Bell Rock" yuck!!

[MrsO]

OK, i've read almost every post in this thread and thought "I love that song!!"  .
I really love Christmas music. The only one I can think of which I dislike is Band Aid 2 (1989), which doesn't sound Christmassy in the slightest and is sung almost entirely by Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Urgh.
Also, POD to Calbrini about 'Stay Another Day'. I'm adding 'Mad World' by Gary Jules to the list. OK, it was Christmas number 1, but it still isn't christmassy and is a really depressing song. Stop playing it all through December, MTV. Grr.

[NEDESAPIO]

"Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer"!! I loathe that song....

I hate that song the same way I hate the movie The Christmas Story:  it's just not funny.

[basphillips]

Not sure if this goes here or in Holidays,  mods please move if it's in the wrong spot.

So holiday music is in full swing now.  The very first holiday song I heard? The one that irritates me to no end. Every year I dread hearing this song, it grates and grates on me and inevitably ends up stuck in my head, no matter how quickly I change the station or leave the store:

I think it's by Paul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmas Time".  It just goes on repeating "siiimply..haaaving... awonderfulChristmastime...." 

The incessant repeating plus the spacing of the words and the rhythm drives me insane.

Most of enjoy holiday music, but which one annoys you?

This is the very first song that popped into my head when I read the title of this thread.  I can't stand this song!!

What they said!

But in general I do enjoy most holiday music, especially traditional carols, sung of course by people who really can sing 

[geordicat]

"Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer"!! I loathe that song....

I hate that song the same way I hate the movie The Christmas Story:  it's just not funny.

I'm with you on that movie.  I can't stand it.

[TychaBrahe]

The funny thing is that some of the stuff they're guilting you over isn't even true!  They claim that "the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears" (or something like that; don't have the lyrics in front of me), but Ethiopia is the source of the Blue Nile River, the tributary responsible for most of the Nile's water and fertile soil!  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Nile)  Also, given the long history of Christianity in Ethiopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Ethiopia), I'd say they definitely "know it's Christmas."

(I know, I know, I'm letting facts get in the way of a good story!)

Granted, but with a government as poor as Ethiopia's, you can't get that water out to the fields where it was needed, any more than you can water those fields with the Gulf of Aden, which bordered Ethiopia prior to Eritrean independence.

Regardless of the prevalence of water, Ethiopia was suffering from a severe drought in the mid-1980's, which compounded the effects of their civil war.  Estimates were that in areas like the Rift Valley, rainfall was down 94% from the average.  Band-Aid, with the single Do They Know It's Christmastime and the concert the following summer, raised over 100 million dollars for famine relief.  Although close to 1 million people died of the famine, another 6 million were threatened with death.  Band-Aid is credited with saving their lives.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WJHE2_GnKnI&feature=related
Warning:   This video contains highly disturbing images of children starving.  It also shows trucks, planes, and boats filled with food being sent to them.

[Sleepingmediocre]

I stand corrected.  And educated.  Thanks, TychaBrahe.

[wordgirl]

I don't mind jokey Christmas songs, even really irreverant ones, a few times here and there. Hearing them incessantly? Makes me insane.

But there are two songs I hate with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns.

One was included on a tape of Christmas music we used to play at Famous Lingerie Store: Andy Williams' "Happy Holidays/It's the Holiday Season." It has possibly the most inane lyrics I've ever heard. A sample:

It’s the holiday season, and Santa Claus is comin round,
the Chiristmas snow is white on the ground,
When old Santa gets into town,
he’ll be comin down the chimney down!
(he’ll be comin down the chimney down!)

Honestly, what the heck does that last line even mean? And they had to say it twice? My ears! (There's another bit about whoop-de-doo and sock-hanging. Don't make me go there.)

The other one I hate ... "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I'd put that on an album called Holiday Music to Slash Your Wrists By. The sentiments are pretty enough (though it's worth noting that the original lyrics included lines like " ''Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last." and "Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more.'' More info: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1569872,00.html)

But it's the doleful, droopy tune that makes it so depressing. The Karen Carpenter rendition is probably the soppiest.

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" is almost as bad, but not quite.

[kareng57]

I don't mind jokey Christmas songs, even really irreverant ones, a few times here and there. Hearing them incessantly? Makes me insane.

But there are two songs I hate with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns.

One was included on a tape of Christmas music we used to play at Famous Lingerie Store: Andy Williams' "Happy Holidays/It's the Holiday Season." It has possibly the most inane lyrics I've ever heard. A sample:

It’s the holiday season, and Santa Claus is comin round,
the Chiristmas snow is white on the ground,
When old Santa gets into town,
he’ll be comin down the chimney down!
(he’ll be comin down the chimney down!)

Honestly, what the heck does that last line even mean? And they had to say it twice? My ears! (There's another bit about whoop-de-doo and sock-hanging. Don't make me go there.)

The other one I hate ... "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I'd put that on an album called Holiday Music to Slash Your Wrists By. The sentiments are pretty enough (though it's worth noting that the original lyrics included lines like " ''Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last." and "Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more.'' More info: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1569872,00.html)

But it's the doleful, droopy tune that makes it so depressing. The Karen Carpenter rendition is probably the soppiest.

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" is almost as bad, but not quite.

I guess that says something about me!  I'm really not a Christmas-person (I find it to be quite stressful, family-history and all that) yet I like both of those songs.

I definitely agree with a couple of PPs suggestions - like that John Lennon song (So This is Christmas, or something - just drones on and on).  Same with that song of McCartney's - Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time - repeats over and over.  Grandma Got Run Over etc. - well, I do like the Irish Rovers so much that I'll let that pass.

I did once have the audio-tape of Ray Stevens's Christmas, and it was hilarious.  One of them was indeed "The Little Drummer Boy Next Door".

[GlindaBunny]

I hate most Christmas songs, especially the upbeat ones in stores.



I like the old fashioned madrigal type ones if done by a GOOD choir (and I hate the sound of most choirs). 


The Mormon Tabernacle Choir often uses too much dang vibrato.  It pollutes the purity of the sound.  I prefer the Cambridge Singers.  I can stand MOST of this album:

http://www.amazon.com/The-John-Rutter-Christmas-Album/dp/B00006JJ4T/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1228095943&sr=8-3

[MeeLee]

Something about a mouse being outside in the cold and befriending a cat, and the cat keeps the mouse warm, then the cat freezes to death and Santa takes the cat up to Heaven.  The first time I actually listened to the lyrics I was like, "Whaaa.....Huh" and then  Cry.

I heard that song like 12 years ago on radio on the way to school on the bus. Everybody cried.

[magician5]

Which ones annoy me? Hmmm... Let me figure this out...

They're all OK the first time I hear them ... they're still not horrible the second time ...

ALL OF THEM annoy me the third through the six-hundred-and-twentieth time I hear them every year.

So that's the answer: every single maddening one of them.

Ah, well ... Merry Ch ... I mean Happy Holidays.

[Sleepingmediocre]

The sentiments are pretty enough (though it's worth noting that the original lyrics included lines like " ''Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last." and "Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more.'' More info: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1569872,00.html)

Wow.  I had no idea--I've always been most familiar with the Sinatra version, and liked it--but there's no way the original lyrics would ever have made it on the radio!  Holiday music to slash your wrists by, indeed!  

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" are the ones that always get me, especially if I'm NOT going to be able to make it home for Christmas.  Thanks for reminding me that, no matter how I choose to celebrate, it will be a pale imitation of a REAL holiday!

The "Hey, Santa" song by the Wilsons that a PP mentioned always gets on my nerves too.  I remember hearing it in the car four or five years ago when one of my closest friends (who was living with me at the time) was stationed in Iraq, and when they got to the lines about "All the presents by the tree/They don't mean a thing till he's with me," I had to pull over to the side of the road so I could cry.  Now I can't listen to the song without wanting to cry again.

[Sleepingmediocre]

Almost forgot one!  I was working retail during Christmas 2001, when 9/11 was still fresh on everybody's minds.  Somebody recorded a 9/11-themed parody of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," bashing Osama bin Laden, and had a man read it very dramatically in a deep voice while patriotic music played in the background.  All I remember now is the first line:  "Every U down in U-ville liked U. S. a lot.  But the BINCH, who lived far east of U-ville, did NOT."  The local radio station loved it, and played it roughly once an hour EVERY DAY for most of the Christmas season.  By about the 500th time, I was ready to throw a brick at the radio just. to. make. it. stop.  I can only take so much of my emotions being jerked around, thank you very much.