The NC Double Scrooge: Songbook Division
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on December 15, 2010 – 9:22 AM154 Comments
I’ve made my feelings about various Christmas songs clear elsewhere, so I won’t belabor the point, but today’s the day in the NC Double Scrooge on which we formally censure the holiday tunes we hate the most. I’ve never even heard “The Christmas Shoes,” but y’all seemed to feel quite strongly about it, so now’s your chance to throw it into a semifinal.
Tomorrow, we’ll vote on Christmas movies and specials; finals start soon!
NC Double Scrooge, Songbook Division: Please Pick The Three (3) WORST
- "The Christmas Shoes" (12%, 400 Votes)
- "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" -- I mean…no (12%, 381 Votes)
- "Wonderful Christmastime," Paul "Smugbob Casiopants" McCartney (9%, 286 Votes)
- "Do They Know It's Christmas?," Band-Aid (9%, 279 Votes)
- Traditional hymns like "Lo, How A Rose" cheapened by pop-star over-singing (7%, 238 Votes)
- "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" -- and it was fucked up (7%, 234 Votes)
- "Baby It's Cold Outside" -- because nothing says "the holidays" like date rape (6%, 192 Votes)
- "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg" (4%, 126 Votes)
- "Last Christmas," Wham! (4%, 119 Votes)
- "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" -- all versions (and the naughty/nice wordplay they bring with them), but especially Springsteen's yelly iteration (3%, 104 Votes)
- "Little Drummer Boy" (3%, 95 Votes)
- "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," John Lennon (3%, 90 Votes)
- "Feliz Navidad" (3%, 88 Votes)
- "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the derfy "like Monopoly!" interjections (2%, 74 Votes)
- "Jingle Bell Rock" (2%, 74 Votes)
- "Meli Kalikimaka," in which Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters insert an earwig that will not work itself loose until Easter (2%, 62 Votes)
- "Here Comes Santa Claus" -- seriously? "Santa Claus Lane"? What is he, the Easter Bunny? The idea of Elvis humping Santa Claus does not roast our chestnuts (2%, 61 Votes)
- "Blue Christmas" (1%, 44 Votes)
- "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" (1%, 43 Votes)
- "Auld Lang Syne" -- sounds like an old-timey disease (1%, 36 Votes)
- Anything Dolly Parton or Willie Nelson sings (1%, 33 Votes)
- "Frosty the Snowman" (1%, 31 Votes)
- "I'll Be Home For Christmas" (1%, 30 Votes)
- "Christmas in Dixie" (1%, 25 Votes)
- "Mary's Boy Child," Harry Belafonte (1%, 23 Votes)
- "Santa's Beard," the Beach Boys (1%, 19 Votes)
- "Christmas in My Hometown," Charley Pride (1%, 17 Votes)
- "Sleigh Ride" (0%, 16 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,104
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Tags: *NSYNC Keckler music NC Double Scrooge winter-holiday agita
I had to youtube ‘The Christmas Shoes’. That’s AWFUL. Wow. I’d write-in ‘Santa Baby’ as well.
How about the talented singers and songstresses who can’t do Christmas songs worth a damn? I’m looking at YOU, Barbra! And Neil Diamond! And (UGGHHH!) BARRY MANILOW!!!!
I’ll stick to Country Christmas songs, thank you! Country knows how to laugh it up and still feel holiday-ish! Thanks Brad Paisley, George Straight and Brooks and Dunn! Oh, and Frank Sinatra. His “the Christmas Waltz” gets me every time!!
P.S. You guys are killing me here! LOL!! @Profreader, That is SO Steve and Edie!!
I’m sorry Bob Dylan’s Christmas album didn’t make the list. I’ll willingly listen to Dolly and Willie all day before I’ll listen to ol’ Bob whine through the holiday classics.
God knows, there are enough other entries in this category, though. Die, “Christmas Shoes,” die.
Oddly, it’s not the content of “Rudolph” itself that I hate: it’s the introduction to the effect of, “Okay, you know all those lesser-known reindeer, but have you heard of the MOST FAMOUS REINDEER?” Uh, yes, we have. That is what “most famous” means.
So glad to see Do They Know It’s Christmas up there. I’ve worked retail over Christmas, and still came out of it only hating that song. It’s so bad! (I’ve never heard Christmas Shoes though *knock wood*)
Oh lawdy, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”. HATE – what a totally insipid song.
“The Christmas Shoes” might have been an inoffensive Christmas song if they just left it as a poor kid wanting to buy shoes for his mother for a Christmas present (and not being “dirty, top-to-toe”, or whateverthefuck the lyrics were – that little part sticks in my craw). But nooooooo, they had to make it “Mommy’s DYING, too”, which turns the narrator into a smug, self-congratulatory douche with an appalling lack of perspective. The lyrics are just so ridiculously over-the-top and shamelessly manipulative that it makes the popularity of this song appalling. It’s like having your best friend tell you that she took her cheating boyfriend back because she believes him when he says his dick just accidentally FELL into that other girl, like, “Are you fucking KIDDING???”
Others have suggested this, and I agree with them: this song only works if the kid is a con artist and is going out on the street to hawk the shoes in order to support Mommy and Daddy’s crack habit.
Rot in a barn, Parson Brown.
I legit snorted out loud when I read that, had to put my coffee down and drew a strange look from my coworker. This is why the Nation makes my day.
Also, The Christmas Shoes need to die in a fire. And fast.
I made it to December 14th before I heard about ol’ Gramma. I have yet to hear about these shoes, though, ever. I’m OK with that.
“Santa Baby” makes me nauseous. I have enough problems with the greedy, selfish urges that pollute the season without having to listen to some gold-digger pry expensive gifts out of a Christian saint. If Hieronymus Bosch were alive, he’d paint that. Sorry, Eartha, but I just gotta vent.
Jingle Bell Rock irritates the hell out of me, Triple Hate Score if it’s sung by John Cougar Mellencamp.
Do They Know It’s Christmas: ugh. Well-meaning glurge. I wish there was a response song from African artists called Do You Know About Islam?
I’m another one who’s not particularly upset by a “Christmas Song” in and of itself, but the endless repetition really grinds it down.
That said, “Last Christmas” doesn’t take too many repetitions before I start to hate it.
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Part of the issue is that there aren’t a whole lot of Christmas songs that don’t make at least one Christian or religious reference; that’s why you hear stuff like “Last Christmas” and “Wonderful Christmastime” so many times, because otherwise certain people get all “RARGH BLAAGH SOMEONE SAID GOD”
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“Baby It’s Cold Outside” — I don’t see it as celebrating date rape either. This sounds like one of those “i can uncover the hidden HORRIBLE TRUE MEANING of this popular song because i’m smarter than you lol” things, like where people try to claim that “Wonderful Tonight” is actually about spousal abuse.
@Carrie Ann – I’ve never heard Christmas Shoes, but that clip you linked to – priceless! Thank you!
Anlyn and Katharine – might I suggest Chanticleer for lovely Christmas music that you’d probably like. [Every year they perform at a venue where I usher. It’s wonderful.]
jennie – I used to hate Manheim Steamroller too because it was the “walking in and taking your seats” music for our school Christmas program every year. Also my father played it at home. A lot. But it’s been years and now I feel a little nostalgic about it. And by years I mean at least 10 of them.
Oh god, Christmas Shoes… somehow my husband was lucky enough to avoid hearing it until this year (probably because every time it came on the radio, I’d give a horrified shriek and switch stations) and so he never understood my utter loathing of the song. He heard it once and now is firmly on my side in this matter. Not even telling myself that the kid is running some sort of con is enough to render it palatable.
On the other hand… I like both “Baby it’s Cold” and Ertha Kitt’s “Santa Baby,” so clearly I’m insane.
Not only does ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! make me cringe every time I hear it but now Taylor Swift has decided to remake it and it is literally played every hour on the radio to the point that my 5 year old can sing along to the entire song. Taylor Swift’s remake = not a better version.
‘Christmas Shoes’ is without question the worst song ever, not just for the holidays, but for all time.
If only I could cast all my votes for The Christmas Shoes. Even McCartney’s abomination is something I could live with if I could abolish The Christmas Shoes.
Clerk: You don’t have enough money, kid.
THE REST OF THE WORLD: His MOTHER is DYING, DOUCHEBAG. Just GIVE him the DAMN shoes!
I have a confession to make. I actually…don’t hate “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”, but in my defense I don’t hate it for a weird reason. My father is (well was, he retired recently) an actor for a local theater. He’s extremely intelligent, very dry sense of humor, can quote Thomas Merton at will. And he LOVES that song, I have no idea why. So now it makes me think of my father snickering whenever he hears it, and my mother putting her foot down and telling him is ONLY allowed to play that song ONCE PER YEAR.
Chalk me up as someone who’s never listened to “The Christmas Shoes”. I DID see bits and pieces of the Hallmark movie based on it, and for that it earns my eternal ire.
On the one hand, Mele Kalikimaka has the unique ability to slowly gnaw away at your brain. On the other hand, Happy Xmas (War is Over) features listening to the song stylings of Yoko Ono, which sounds not unlike a cow yodeling. Finally, there is the truth that in my personal hell, they only play the Christmas albums of country stars (Vince Gill, looking at you, pal…)
Nothing beats out Christmas Shoes for me but a close second is pretty much any Christmas song by Springsteen, even though I like all his other music. It’s so awful. As is the “sexy” Santa Baby. Ugh.
The Christmas Shoes is the worst song ever. I wish I could vote for it a million times, and that still wouldn’t be enough. It’s holiday glurge at its worst.
Seriously, not enough check marks. But I had to spare one for Springsteen, because I’ve ranted against that particular song on this site before. Some Christmas songs make me feel embarrassed for the singer in the sense of “Did you actually read these lyrics before you decided to sing them?” but only Springsteen’s makes me feel bad in the sense of “Dude, seriously, just stop before you hurt yourself.”
Many, so many write-ins that I agree with as well — “Santa Baby,” “Hippopotamus,” and amazingly, I’d never heard “Dominick the Donkey”…until this morning. Went straight on the list.
Another one who would have voted for “Santa, Baby.” HATE.
I also would have voted for “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, but it’s recently passed into “so bad it’s good” territory for me.
@Isabel C. I had to google that one. I found the lyrics, but no recording. I hope this is the right one- it sounds amazingly awful:
When I dial Santa’s fax phone number,
And follow the fax routine
Before you know it my letter will arrive
At the North Pole fax machine.
I feel your pain- not a Christmas song, but I often get the Fifty State Capitals Rap stuck in my head, a fifth grade treasure of my own:
Alabama, in the South and summery,
Its capital rhymes, Montgomery.
“Little Drummer Boy” is just annoying, terribly so, but those damn “Christmas Shoes”! Part of the reason I voted for it is my own self-loathing for falling prey to that melodramatic treacle. Every. Single. Time. I have a split personality for that song, the ridiculous part of me that keeps tearing up (my mother died right before Christmas) and the part of me that stands there shouting, “Oh, for the love of God! What ridiculous, manipulative nonsense! I can’t believe you’re falling for this!” That part would have vote for “The Christmas Shoes” three million times….
Years of working retail at Christmas make me hate most of the what passes for holiday “music” in stores, but “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” makes me want to cause violence and mayhem. (Also, the whole Nutcracker story? Creepy. And the Nutcrackers themselves? They come alive at night and kill people.)
@PippiStardust – Ugh, yes, I hate Santa Baby! I was glad to see my other two least-favorites (Little Drummer Boy and Santa Claus is Coming to Town) were on the list, but I do wish I could have voted for Santa Baby, because just ew on so many levels.
Apparently I’ve also been lucky enough not to have heard The Christmas Shoes (or not enough times to recognize it).
I hate most of these, but the song receiving the majority of my vitriol is “We are Santa’s elves” from Rudolph. I watch Rudolph for Yukon Cornelius & the bouncing bumble, not to be tortured by insane earworms until I’m homicidal.
“Christmas Shoes” is the worst song in the history of all songs. If you haven’t heard it, just don’t bother. I echo those who have said they wish they could use all 3 votes on that song.
Another of the worst that didn’t make the list is “Grown-Up Christmas List”. Gag!!!!!
@Kate – One of my friends loves “Dominic the Donkey”.
Although I’m pretty sure that a good part of his pleasure in the song comes from tormenting other people with it.
I’ll write in Santa Baby and Dominic the Donkey. I am surprised to have never heard at least 6 of the songs on this list, including the infamous Christmas Shoes. I’m debating whether to visit youtube…
I love Christmas music but I gotta second the hate for Johnny Mathis and add some Burl Ives hate on there while I’m at it. My local 24 hour Christmas music station plays all of their versions during afternoon drive-time, just when I’m running errands and such. Hate. Hate. Hate. There are tons of updated versions of all of these Christmas songs, that’s half the fun, not listening to the same tired crap 20-30 times a day!
Janie – I agree on the “Wonderful Christmastime”. There is no way of updating that horrible earwig… Now its stuck in my head…
My high school band played “Sleigh Ride” every bloody year – and being a musician, it only takes a couple of notes for that tune to get stuck in my head for a week. It’s like Cartman and “Come Sail Away” – my brain won’t let it go until I’ve made it all the way through to the fake horse whinny on the trumpet, the “whip crack” percussion clapper, and the brief pause before the final two notes. HAAAAAAAAAATE.
“O Holy Night”: Love the song but it makes me cry, so I can’t deal with it for the same reason why I can’t deal with “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” So, thanks Paper Source, but I don’t need to dissolve into a ball of snotty Kleenex until I’m in the privacy of my own home. Even when I try hard not to listen, I lose it when I hear “fall on your knees” and I’m not particularly religious, it’s just the music that really works on me.
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”: First of all, I don’t think Christmas songs should rock, but that’s because I was born an eighty-year-old woman. Second of all, the Kate Smith version sounds creepily like Wayne Newton, circa Danke Schoen.
“Feliz Navidad”: I’m not racist, it’s just really frustrating when you don’t speak the language and therefore can’t even sing along with the song bouncing around your head. Also, it always ends up turning into La Cucaracha somehow. Okay, *that* makes me racist.
Finally, “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time” is the song equivalent to the “Wish you were here” postcard. Smug off, McCartney.
I completely support all of the hate for “The Christmas Shoes”, because it is so, so deserving. And, to give context to you lucky, lucky people who don’t know it (I’m so jealous!): I believe it was made into a Hallmark (or Lifetime?) movie… starring Rob Lowe. No, I have not seen it.
And, am I the only one looking desparately to vote for “Rockin’ Around the [F’n] Christmas Tree”? Really? Okay, then.
@Kriesa: “So, has Glee the toothpaste survived in the Rudolph song?”
No, but now there’s Glee the TV show.
I’m satisfied with the choices I made, but I do want to write-in “My Favorite Things.” Not only is it not in any sense a holiday song, it’s not even a *winter* song like “Jingle Bells” and “Sleigh Ride” technically are.
I didn’t realize until just a few days ago that “Here Comes Santa Claus” was religious in tone. I thought I knew the lyrics, but I was listening to the 24-hour Christmas station (yes, I’m one of those people, and have an unabashed love for most of the songs on this list!), and heard “Santa knows we’re all God’s children and that makes everything riiiight…” and was like “Wait, whaaaa?!?” I thought Santa songs were the non-religious alternative to the Jesus-y carols. But apparently this one is a combo. Wacky.
I love Bruce Springsteen, but damn do I hate his “Saaaaaaaaaanna Claus is Comin ta Tah” song that lasts for-freaking-ever. Just give Clarence his damn saxophone and get back to Glory Days already.
[Solidarity bump] to my fellow 80s fan adam807. Do They Know it’s Christmas foreva! I view the people who say things like “Um, it’s Africa so they’re 70% Muslim and it’s hot, so of course they wouldn’t know it’s Christmas” to be in the same league as the obnoxious Snooty McSolticepants people from the other poll. It’s the spirit of giving, people! I bet you never made an awesome song with the era’s most awesome artists that raised millions for people in need, now did you?!?
Do they know it’s Christmas? Maybe, but they probably don’t care, because not everyone is Christian.
It’s not on the list, but I have to make a special case for “songs that mention Christmas, but do not, in fact, have anything to do with Christmas.” Radio stations in my area have for some UNGODLY REASON decided that Joni Mitchell’s “River” (and a few awful cover versions of it) count as Christmas songs. “RIVER” IS NOT A CHRISTMAS SONG. IT IS A DEPRESSING LOST LOVE SONG. STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!!!
I like the song, but Jesus, not in that context.
Wonderful Christmastime is the bane of my holiday existence. If I could have voted twelve million times for it, I would have. I loathe the song and it always gets lodged in my skull, repeating inanely over and over and over until I want to claw my own face off.
Thanks, everyone, for setting me straight on “Sleighride” versus “Winter Wonderland”. I don’t hate “Sleighride”, but don’t really like it either, so the vote can stay.
@cmcl – yeah, that’s the other song that has a million versions and is played constantly. Also, ever since I heard someone refer to a man’s jewels as “chestnuts”, I always giggle at the beginning, because I am twelve.
@Amanda-not a Christmas song, but we had to play “Pomp and Circumstance” for each graduating class (except our own). Each class had a minimum of 300 students, so the damn song went on forever. The kicker? The band for each graduation included both high school and junior high–so I played that damn song for FIVE YEARS. ON REPEAT.
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet–My Grownup Christmas Wish (or The Christmas Wish). A lot of versions of this one, too, and while I like the sentiment, it’s very treacly and sappy. Not as saccharine as “Christmas Shoes” (and not nearly as offensive), but close.
@Wehaf, trust me, you don’t want to listen to the infamous Christmas Shoes. It will make you want to stab things.
“Cracked” has “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” at Number 8 of its “8 Romantic Songs You Didn’t Know Were About Rape.” Many of the songs on the list aren’t the least bit romantic, though. http://www.cracked.com/article_18431_8-romantic-songs-you-didnt-know-were-about-rape.html
I like “The Christmas Song.” Right now I especially like Alex Chilton’s cover – I miss Alex Chilton.
@JC, THANK YOU! My husband loves the “Christmas Shoes” song and he won’t let me turn it off and he won’t listen to me explain that the kid is (or his parents are) clearly a con artist!
Listen, if the kid is old enough to get to and be in the store all by himself, and if he is old enough to recognize that his mother “did without” so that everyone else could have a nice Christmas, he is old enough to know how much money a pair of shoes cost and whether or not he has that much.
Also, I love “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (especially the line about the maiden aunt’s vicious mind! Cracks me up!), but I agree that the line about what’s in this drink is a leeetle creepy.
Elsajeni: Hahaha, that’s never bothered me before, but now I will always notice it. You are my kind of internet pedant!
TipperTapper: I don’t think anyone thinks the song is intentionally about date rape, but very few things are intended to be creepy, that’s why intent isn’t the last word in what things mean. It’s still a song where a lady wants to leave and the dude is like “No you can’t. Sit down and drink more.” Yes, it’s supposed to be seductive, but it has a creepy side.
@Fred: THIS. And the NFL on Fox theme is juuuuust close enough to do exactly the same thing to me. No other xmas song will get stuck like Sleigh Ride.
@Keckler: that’s my problem with Feliz Navidad too; I don’t actually know the words so it turns into mumbling other than the words “feliz navidad”. Plus it’s annoyingly perky, like a cheerleader drinking a frappacino.
I somehow managed to avoid “The Christmas Shoes” until just last weekend (as had my mother). We were baking cookies and listening to the radio, which plays a combination of good and terrible songs, and when that song came on we just stared at each other in horror. Like, that can’t really be a Christmas song, can it? Need the brain bleach!! I also loathe “Last Christmas” to the point where my brother likes to mock me whenever it is played.
Fortunately you don’t hear him very often these days, but as a child when an Andy Williams song would come on my dad would invariably shout: “Speed it up, Andy!” And I still do the same.
If you have never heard it, the version of “12 Days of Christmas” by John Denver and the Muppets is AWESOME! It may be a childhood thing for us, but we have to listen to it every year.
OK, HELL NO!!!!!!!!! I’m in the Midwest and every store, every station that plays Christmas music, every elevator, plays The Christmas Shoes. I cannot believe the number of people who’ve never heard it, and all y’all go You Tube it before you vote. You wouldn’t vote for President without some knowledge of the leading candidates right? Its fine to dismiss Green party candidates like “Mary’s Boy Child” that will never win anyway if you don’t know them, but you cannot say you know the worst Xmas song if you haven’t heard the abomination that is Christmas Shoes. If I have to suffer, so should you!!!
“Question for y’all: what’s your take on “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” particularly the depressing Judy Garland version vs the cheered-up Sinatra version? I love the former; the latter annoys me simply because of its attempt to whitewash the whole song with happy. It’s not supposed to be happy!”
I love you. If you have to change an entire line from “Next year all our troubles will be over/If the Fates allow” to “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” to make it suit what you want it to be you aren’t singing it right.
Ahhh, yes, Baby, It’s Cold Outside: because of the implication!
Erin, I agree that I much prefer the Judy Garland Booze’n Pills saddy blues version of Have Yourself. It is supposed to be about the special melencholy that descends with the snows, not all peppy and sparkly and played on a white piano with lots of trilling. Tori Amo’s version kicks ass, too.
Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck Twelve Days of Christmas is the one not there that I would vote for in a second. My favorite country station loves it so I hate it so much!!
I love Dolly Parton Christmas music, especially the ones with her and Kenny Rogers.
I still have that Nsync album on the picture. And the 98 degrees one, and the New Kids one, and the Hanson one. My Christmas cd collection is basically impulse buys that I possibly haven’t listened to even once.
I’d like to cast a write-in vote for “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. No. No, it isn’t, it’s crazy and stressful, and stop trying to convince me that I’m wrong for feeling that way.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Christmas Shoes” before either, and I’m sure as heck not looking it up after reading this comment string.
I seem to be the only person in the world who actually likes Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. I don’t even like the song in general, but I can’t help it, the part where he starts laughing just gives me the warm fuzzies.
True story: I always used to hear the “Parson Brown” line from “Winter Wonderland” as “parse and brown.” Which made no sense. I think I was about 30 before I figured out what the real words are.