List of "Tired" Christmas Music (That Should Be Retired)

Self (Vanity)

[SamAdams76]

The Christmas season is upon us once again and the sounds of holiday music can be heard in shopping malls, restaurants, and other public places. Radio stations are already slipping the occasional Christmas song into their playlists and by mid-December, it will be wall-to-wall Christmas music.

Now that is not a bad thing. I like Christmas music. I collect Christmas music. Later in the Christmas season, I will post a vanity on my favorite Christmas music and that post promises to be much longer than this one.

But why is it that so many tired and really annoying Christmas songs seem to get the most airplay? Is it just me or does it seem like the radio stations play the same few Christmas songs 90% of the time?

On this thread, I will list some of my least favorite or more accurately, the most tired Christmas songs of alltime and will seek your input. I put a lot of thought into putting this list together. You are welcome to disagree with me and/or list a few really tired Christmas songs of your own.

Surely there are worse Christmas songs out there than the ones I am about to list. But I kept my list to songs that are familiar and that get a lot of airplay. The emphasis here on on "tired" rather than "bad." Also, to make my list, the song must have been out for at least five years. These songs have established some longevity of being really tired. I am listing the ones that have been "in our face" year after year. Without so much great material out there (I'll have a separate post on that closer to Christmas), there is no excuse for radio stations not to pursue fresher material.

So in no particular order, here goes...the most "tired" Christmas songs of alltime.

• Elmo & Patsy - Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. Now I'm not normally a violent person. But if somebody was to shoot the person who wrote this song, it would be okay by me. This has got to be absolutely the most annoying Christmas Song I have ever heard. It stopped being funny sometime around 1984. Yet year after year, radio stations seem to play it at least once every hour. Many a Christmas compilation album has been ruined for me by the inclusion of this tired ditty.
  

• Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song. Okay, maybe it was funny the first 232 times I heard it. But this song has really run its course and it should be retired. And to add insult to injury, Sandler released a "sequel" version of this song a few years ago but it already seems like 20 years ago. It's just not "funakah" to hear this anymore.
  

• The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping. Many, many years ago, back when Ronald Reagan used to refer to Russia as the "Evil Empire," it was cool to play this record at Christmas. It was cutting edge and having this song in your Christmas collection separated you from the Perry Como and Bing Crosby crowd. Well it's not cutting edge, cool or "New Wave" anymore. It's as mainstream as Garth Brooks and as dull as Peter Jennings. Give this record a rest, please.
  

• Jose Feliciano - Feliz Navidad. Must be a "PC" thing because the song itself is lame. Okay, okay, so it's politically correct to be "diverse" and know "Merry Christmas" in 17 different languages. So Buon Natale to you then, I am putting a contract out on this record. I am going to have it inserted into a block of wet cement and send it to the bottom of Boston Harbor. At least the Italians know what to do when something becomes tired and no longer "useful." Time for some new Christmas material from Mexico, and fast.
  

• Cheech & Chong - Santa And His Old Lady. Cheech: "Like I PLAYED with that dude, man." Chong: "Whoa, like Santa Claus ain't no musician, man!" Cheech: "I'm hip, man, like that dude couldn't play for beans, man!" Well I'm hip to Cheech & Chong. They can't play for beans and they aren't funny anymore to boot. Were these guys EVER funny? Must have been a 70s thing.
  

• Band-Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas? Not only was this song a blatant rip-off of "We Are The World" (or maybe it was vice versa) but the question the song poses is ridiculous. Of course they don't know it's Christmas, and they probably couldn't give a shit either. Until this year, did we ever know it was Ramadan over there? And that "Feed The World" chorus, well, here it is 15 years later and the people are still starving over there. Guess it makes liberals feel good to sing the song though. Like the next one on my list...
  

• John & Yoko - Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Maybe it's the spelling of Christmas that irks me most about this record. Didn't this song start the whole loathsome "Xmas" thing? Anyway, you can be sure that this song will get even heavier airplay this Christmas season in light of the current war situation. But I'm so tired of this song already!
  

• Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Okay, I like Bruce Springsteen. But I still think he could have picked a better Christmas song to cover. Or even have done an original. Anyway, I was already tired of this song by 1979.

I could think of a few more but I'm going to let my fellow Freepers get a crack at adding to the list of "tired" Christmas music.

[gumbo]

Yeah, I do like the Burl Ives version, I guess. Have just heard it WAY too many times at kids' school concerts.

[Boxsford]

LOL, oh, you're funny. I have to admit though that I still like that one .

[farmfriend]

Dogs barking Jingle Bells gets my vote.

[thulldud]

Well, I'd like to kick the Little Drummer Boy's rump-a-pum-pum. Failing that, I'd settle for doing it to the composer or anybody who performs it in my hearing.

[JoeSchem]

It's been so long since they've been heard, 'Silent Night' and 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' would sound new if they were played on the radio.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Well I'm hip to Cheech & Chong. They can't play for beans and they aren't funny anymore to boot. Were these guys EVER funny?

Well Cheech still gives a chuckle on 'Nashville Bridges', and Rae Dawn Cong(Tommy's daughter) is cute.

[ChemistCat]

The one with the dogs barking. Definitely a funny-once. But I agree we need to shoot the people who had anything to do with the one about the grandma and the reindeer; it actually makes my daughter cry.

I bought a CD of Christmas songs off a discount rack which may be the worst album ever digitally recorded. It's a very, very bad children's choir singing along with an off-tune piano. LOATHESOME. I'll send it free to anyone who wants it. It's Rocky Horror Picture Show bad but isn't even meant to be.

[looois]

I don't like "Blue Christmas." Not by anybody. I know, the Elvis version is a classic. But tear jerkers are not what I want to hear at Christmas. It's popular probably because, I understand, for those who are lonely anyway, Christmas time really makes them blue. Another so-called classic I don't care for is Orbison's "Pretty Paper."

[Joshua]

White Christmas by Bing Crosby. His whistling in that song drives me nuts!!!

[YaYa123]

Absolutely the best Christmas song ever.....a family tradition in our house. Elvis singing at his bluesy best. It's on one of his Christmas albums. I love it..lyrics are so great...my whole family loves it...we sing it like crazy, starting at Thanksgiving!

Found it!!!!

"Santa Claus is Back in Town"
Well, it's Christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling on the ground
Well, it's Christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling down
Well you be a real good little girl
Santa Claus is back in town

Got no sleigh with reindeer
No sack on my back
You're gonna see me comin' in a big black caddilac
Oh, it's Christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling on the ground
Well you be a real good little baby
Santa Claus is back in town

Hang up your pretty stockings
And turn off the light
Santa Claus is comin' down your chimney tonight
Oh, it's Christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling on the ground
Well you be a real good little baby
Santa Claus is back in town"

[SamAdams76]

That would be Bob and Doug McKenzie doing the "12 Days of Christmas." Yep, definitely in the tired category. I have the record and there is this stupid monologue leading into the song where Bob and Doug are talking about what the "12 Days" of Christmas are. They end up deciding that they comprise Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Years Day, the two weekend days in between and "five mystery days." Pretty lame stuff.

Did you know that one of the "McKenzie brothers" is Rick Moranis? I didn't know that until I bought the record.

[Tony in Hawaii]

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by the I Forget Who.

[Looking4Truth]

They all suck. Yeah, humbug, but I'm tired of hearing that crap over and over again whenever I go out in public. Just part of the retailers 'Holiday Season'.

Now that I think of it since there are NO more advertisements that wish a 'Merry CHRISTmas', I'm going to listen to the words in these songs to see if they have abandoned the Christmas theme in the 'muzak', too.

[farmfriend]

Love Silent Night and O Tannenbaum in the original German.

[ResistorSister]

Twelve Days of Christmas...up to the fifth day of Christmas is fine...but after that the song becomes tedious.

[DeBug=int13]

 

 

 

Hey! We heard that, eh

 

 

[lexington minuteman 1775]

OK. Not sure of the title but it was about snoopy and the red barron in a dog fight. And altho he shoots snoopy down he does not kill him.Closing lyric is something "merry Christmas my friend "

That and Elvis "Blue Christmas" I guess.

[GussiedUp]

ok I'll be a wet noodle but, except for anything that has YokoScreech-O in it, I love most all the music you mentioned, even Patsy N Elmo LOL I am just so mushy when it comes to Christmas, I love everything about it. My son asked me to stop singing carols in the grocery store today because I was embarassing him! Have a holly jolly Christmas, and in case you didn't hear....Oh by golly have a holly jolly Christmas This year!

[Revolting cat!]

I don't have a list. I like them all (well, almost all.) What I hate are all those countless albums with the same set of Christmas songs by every greedy pop singer whose manager salivates seeing big dollar signs from another "evergreen" classic album (i.e. selling a few thousand copies every year in December.) I don't want to hear Trisha Yearwood interpret "The Christmas Song" that Faith Hill interpreted last year, and Brooks and Dunn the year before that.

But when Alan Jackson (or somebody) records an original Christmas song, why, that's cool!

[SamAdams76]

I have the Jewel Christmas CD. Excellent Christmas version of her hit "Hands." There are so many Christmas albums I own of artists of whom I would never buy their regular stuff.

I'm glad you remember my post of last year. I have a much bigger one planned this year listing some more great Christmas music to check out.