What Holiday Song Annoys You?

[mbt]

While driving to lunch I had the radio on ... and it dawned on me, Sleigh Ride REALLY annoys the crud out of me.  They played three different versions in a row...blech!

[FoxPaws]

One of my pet hates: Any song during which the singer finds it necessary to stop mid-performance and share their personal stories, or worse, lecture us on the True Meaning of Christmas. Blech!! Save it for the holiday edition of E! Hollywood True Story.

[Sleepingmediocre]

Yesterday in a store I heard several Christmas songs over the PA, followed by "Give a Little Bit" by Supertramp and "Imagine" by John Lennon. I can only hope that this particular store hasn't converted its Muzak to "all Christmas, all the time," and that's why those songs showed up -- not because someone decided "Give a Little Bit" belongs in a Christmas mix because it's about giving, and "Imagine" is a Christmas song because it's about peace on Earth. Giving and peace aren't just for Christmas, darnit!

I worked at the Gap during Christmas season 2001--the second year, IIRC, that the chain used "Give a Little Bit" in their Christmas TV commercials.  Each ad featured a different music star wearing Gap clothes and singing a few lines of "Give a Little Bit," followed by the Gap logo.  We had a CD of overly cute and pop-rock-ish Christmas carols that played over the store speakers, but in the employee break room, there was a TV that played every. single. commercial. over. and. over.  It was a continuous loop--and unless you actually left the store for your break (which was discouraged), that was all you got to hear.  Changing the channel was forbidden, so for the entire fifteen minutes of your break (and the entire HOUR of our employee Christmas party) you got to hear the same few lines of "Give a Little Bit" sung by Shaggy.  And Christina Aguilera.  And so on.  And so on.

I actually like "Give a Little Bit," but even now, 7 years later, something inside my brain goes WAAAAARGH every time I hear it.  

[caranfin]

But it's got snowflakes! Any song that mentions snow and/or winter has to be a Christmas song. Which is something that frosts (no pun intended) my shorts. It would be nice to hear "Let It Snow" or "Marshmallow World" or "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in, say, February, when we're getting sick and tired of the snow and could use a reminder of how pretty it really is.

Ironically, I started to list "Baby, It's Cold Outside" as a holiday song I absolutely despise, but then I realized it's not a holiday song.

[caranfin]

I actually like that Beatles Christmas song ("Simply having wonderful Christmas time").  My mom, too:  she says it's the only Beatles song she's ever liked!

Sadly, it means your mother doesn't actually like any Beatles songs - it's a Paul McCartney song. (PedanticCaranfin makes her exit.)

[snowflake]

Until then, I'm just going to ruin the songs for them by over-analyzing them.

You and me both.

My sisters start rolling their eyes when I over-analyze songs. And my brother is still sulky from my "ruining" "Every Breath You Take." (Come on, I had to step in. He wanted it for his first dance with his wife at their wedding reception! Then-fiancee was lukewarm but willing to give in, until I pointed out that it was about an obsessive stalker.)

But my reaction to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is more visceral. Just Don't Like That Song.

Thank you for ruining that for another person.  That song is just annoying.  I think my generation owes the whole world an apology for the 80s.

[kingsrings]

"Do They Know its Christmas"  --- guilting people since 1985

Yes, that and I think there is also some other similar song guilting us with starving people and Christmas, but I can’t remember what it is.

Overall, I can’t stand any Christmas song that is about misery and tragedy. ‘Christmas Shoes’ for example, and some song that came out in the 1980’s of a little girl singing about Christmas and begging Jesus and Santa and whomever to make her mom stop beating her. I think it was called ‘Dear Mr. Jesus’? Boy, talk about raining on a parade, those are just the kind of songs I want to hear around holiday time. 

I really just like old, traditional Christmas songs. Can’t stand most of the contemporary ones, with the exception of funny novelty songs like ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’. My only exception to the older ones is 'Little Drummer Boy'. The only version of that song I like is the one by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. LOVE that version! For some reason they are the only ones who have managed to do that song in a non-annoying way.

[kingsrings]

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.

So would I! It's another let's-make-Christmas-as-miserable-as-possible song.

Hmmm......maybe I should get into and write my own Christmas misery song. Everyone gathers at someone's house for Christmas, but someone has accidentally watered the Christmas tree with gasoline instead, causing it to explode everything in site. 

[extranormal]

Our local radio station fixates on a song called "Stop the Cavalry" by The Cory Band. It isn't bad in limited doses (though it sounds more like a German drinking song than Christmas music), but this station plays it, I would say, seventy three thousand times during the holiday season. After a while, it makes me want to throw stuff at my radio.

[geordicat]

I love the song Stop the Cavalry, but I do not want to hear it more than 3-4 times during the entire Christmas season!

I have it on CD. 

[extranormal]

I love the song Stop the Cavalry, but I do not want to hear it more than 3-4 times during the entire Christmas season!

I have it on CD. 

And I'll bet you know exactly which radio station I refer to! 

[ShieldMaiden]

Oh come Oh come Emmanuel...

I used to love this song.  Until the current priest of our church took over.  Now, during Advent, it is sung as the opening and closing hymn as well as a replacement for the "Amen" and "Lord have Mercy" during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

And they don't even sing it in a happy upbeat way, but in a droning, funeral-like way.

Nothing like hearing it four times each Sunday for four weeks straight to make you really dislike a song 

[Just Lori]

We were driving home for Thanksgiving when I heard a song that featured a voiceover on a Mannheim Steamroller song.  The voiceover was supposed to be about Santa coming across a one-room building with a soldier sleeping inside.  Santa is so overcome with gratitude for the soldier's sacrifices that he breaks down in tears, and the soldier wakes up and tells him not to cry, because he's proud to serve the country.

I thought, come on, we can do a better job of honoring our soldiers than this.  Then I read the background on the poem and was extremely humbled:

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/soldier.asp

[hyzenthlay]

"Do They Know its Christmas"  --- guilting people since 1985

I agree. I grant it raised lots of money, and thats wonderful. But it's so euro-amero-centric in tone. No, in fact since a lot of 'them' may not be Christian they probably don't know. Well that and 'Feed the World' makes it impossible for these countries to become self supporting. A third world farmer can't compete with the mass produced government supported grain that's distributed for free.

I hate 99% of the renditions of Jingle Bells. Don't care by who, or how they jazz it up, it still stinks.

The Bare Naked Ladies cover of God Rest Yeah Merry Gentleman, on the other hand, is on my MP# player year round. As is Christmas at Ground Zero.

[holly firestorm]

In the mall: none of them.  Blasting from my neighbor's stereo: all of them. All morning on Thanksgiving and for several hours the next day.  How arrogant, rude, selfish and inconsiderate!!!  Unless you are opening a Christmas Tree lot or selling housewares, ladies' loungerie and cosmetics, the whole apartment complex doesn't need to be serenaded!  What really gets me is the irony.  You're playing a whole collection of songs that are about good will toward other people and you're showing them you have absolutely no respect for them at all by shoving your music down everyone else's throat, whether they want to hear it or not.  No, just assume they do. Phooey!

I have my Twisted Christmas and hard rock 'devil music' already for the next time she does it.  And the speakers are pointed her way!

So, now do want to know how I really feel?