It wouldn’t be an overstatement to suggest that many people despise Christmas songs. There’s something about them that gets people’s spines shivering. Their over jovial and upbeat tunes chiming away in the background while we’re struggling over dilemmas, such as whether or not we should get Uncle Billy or Jimmy the pink scarf, seem to encourage our inner Scrooge to fester.

It’s not that Christmas songs are bad, it is more like we are just sick and tired of them. It’s like listening to a whole back catalogue of reasonable enough number 1′s all at the same time, but more than this it’s the catchy poppy over enthusiasm of number 1′s singing about the same thing – Christmas. Oh, and the fact that you have to go through this every year at the same time is another reason to not look forward to having to hear Christmas songs over and over and over again. Did I mention that most Christmas songs never even reached number 1 status?

But, to be honest some Christmas songs are great! They really are. Mel and Kim’s Rockin Around the Christmas Tree is a great song, although maybe I’ve just always liked the video because it’s  lots of fun.

Anyway, the song simply isn’t played enough.

Another favourite of mine is Driving Home for Christmas by Chris Rea. I first got into this song when I was around 18 or 19 working in a sports shop selling runners at Christmas. I was working 15 hours a day and six days a week in the run up to Christmas. I was just out of school and had never experienced working at Christmas before. I had loads of money and spent most of the time after work in the pub, not actually going home. The more I heard this song the more I realised what Christmas should be about, and that I should really be going home in the evening and spending time with my friends and family. It was a kind of lonely time for me but gave me a good notion of who or what I was.

While I’m in this happy vein I’ll continue.

As someone said to me last night, you know it’s really Christmas when you hear this one (playing over some nice photos of Dublin during the snow for extra Christmas effect):

Another great Christmas song is this rarely played (but possibly over-played by me) gem by a guy called Lord Nelson, and the song is called Party for Santa. It’s possibly the best Santa song I’ve ever heard. The lyrics are catchy and about something different, and what’s more they are about one of Christmas’s strongest themes, sharing. Awww. Isn’t it nice? Did I mention the song is deadly?

Christmas songs are mad though. Everyone seems to do them, even Iron Maiden and Metallica have Christmas songs, although I’m not going to link them here because, well, I don’t want to. Look for it in your own time. Let me suggest “Iron Maiden Christmas Song”. I’m fairly sure you’ll find something. I’ll even allow you to copy and paste directly from here. You can thank me later and you’re welcome in advance.

Before I forget, I should be complaining about Christmas songs. I kind of wandered off topic and started going on about how great (some) Christmas songs are. I suppose you can’t expect anything better from the kind of person who finds optimism in every aspect of misery. Time for me to indulge in my inner-cynic.

What I really wanted to get to the point about in this post was that, generally, the classic Christmas songs are fine, even in some cases they are great. They’re tear jerkers or happy go-lucky spirit risers that everyone knows the words too and enjoys singing. Right? Yes. But, there seems to be more and more not so good Christmas songs and they are just awful songs. They are sooooo bad.

For starters, there’s that Coke ad song, called Shake Up Christmas and sang by a band called Train (who I’ve never heard of until now and I’m glad I now know how bad they are). I’ve never heard such a bad song in my life, let alone a bad Christmas song. I’ve put the video down here but I would suggest not watching it at all because it is, pure and simple, fucking awful. You’d give up on Christmas if this was all we had to listen to. And, thanks to Coca Cola, any time they want to advertise Coke, we’ll have to listen to it. What the jaysus was wrong with the Christmas trucks with lights and the kid getting all excited?

Any song that’s starts off in it’s early stages with lyrics like ‘There’s a story that I once told/And I wanna tell the world before I get to old/And don’t remember it, so let’s December it/And reassemble it, oh, yeah” should really try to reassemble their imagination and find a new job. Maybe I’m just fussy, but how does one December anything? And once this has been Decembered, how can I reassemble said Decembering…or am I missing something? I could say more, but if I read through the lyrics any more I feel my brain may need to be reassembled (please note: I do not think it has been Decembered in advance).

Another crap and annoying Christmas song is this one by Cyndi Lauper called Chritmas Conga. To be honest, I’m not sure about the lyrics because the only thing I could understand was “Christmas Conga bonga bonga” which comes in at around 50 seconds. After which I stopped listeing:

As for this next Christmas song, I’m not really sure what to do with it. It has a pretty valid message to be honest, but at the same time, it doesn’t really fall under the header of the usual Christmas theme of happy, joyful, festivity. The lyrics are pretty simple, and it is likely that some people spend their Christmas wishing this. That being said, I can’t imagine I’ll be hearing any carol singers chiming out this one for a while yet:

There was one other awful Christmas song that I wanted to share with you but I don’t know what it’s called and I can’t remember who sings it or any of the lyrics so I can’t find it. Which is probably a good thing right?

The last song I want to put up here is possibly a little controversial, or maybe not. It’s a nice song, I suppose, considering the gesture etc. but I do think that this song really does the whole Christmas song popularity business any favours at all. The lyrics are so bloody cheesy, but they are also pretty awful:

“Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging
Chimes of doom
Well, tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you”

To suggest the whole continent of Africa is starving, dry, desolate, and Christian, is a topic for another debate altogether. Bono’s little cameo does this song no favours either.

For a song that’s played so much, you’d think people would just own up to the fact that it’s a shite song. I would happily donate money for every time this song is not played.

So that’s it, that’s why we hate Christmas songs. The same reason why we generalise on anything – it’s the crap that gets piled on top of us that we see first, obscuring our view of the quality material and giving us an unbalanced perspective. Us humans, we’re suckers for negativity, and Christmas is a great time for over-indulging in it.

So humbug to you too!