Airing of Grievances: Annoying Christmas Carols
Uncly-Wuncly aired his grievances last week. Now it’s my turn. I’ll start by whining about those annoying Christmas “neo-carols” that come around every few years, though I’m happy to say I haven’t noticed any this year (yet). Guys, I’ll put it to you simple: we don’t need any more songs about Christmas. The old religious set was good enough for most of us, but throwing in a few Santa songs was cool. But when they started writing songs about reindeer with glow-in-the-dark features, that was God’s way of telling y’all that Christmas songs are a closed class. In linguistics, a “closed class” refers to a class to which no more members can be added. Here, it refers to one where no new members should be. One song about a particular reindeer was plenty; we didn’t need Chuck Berry to encourage him to run, run, and we sure as hell didn’t need to hear about someone’s grandmother getting run over by one. To the bratty kid who wrote that song, I’ll let you in on a little secret: your parents lied to you. They are the ones who ran over your grandma, because they were sick and tired of hearing her sing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” and smiling inanely on the line they stole from that other Christmas song about Fa, La and La.
To any budding, aspiring or actual artists who may read this blog: It’s OK not to write any more songs about Christmas. It’s OK not to do a Christmas album if you haven’t done one already. Of all the Christmas albums that have come out in my lifetime, only two (OK, maybe three) are worth listening to anyway. Maybe yours will be too, but the odds are against it. if you must sing about the season at all, write a song bitching and moaning about how much it sucks to have to clear snow off your driveway or start your car in sub-zero temperature. We need more songs about that. We don’t need any more songs to remind us what happy holiday it is that Best Buy is trying unsuccessfully to hide from us.
December 17th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
I vote “It’s the Little Saint Nick” as the most annoying neo-carol of all time. BTW, it’s only recently that I have heard “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” on the radio outside of Dr. Demento.
December 17th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
[...] According to VK, Xrlq doesn’t like new Christmas carols. To any budding, aspiring or actual artists who may read this blog: It’s OK not to write any more songs about Christmas. It’s OK not to do a Christmas album if you haven’t done one already. Of all the Christmas albums that have come out in my lifetime, only two (OK, maybe three) are worth listening to anyway. Maybe yours will be too, but the odds are against it. if you must sing about the season at all, write a song bitching and moaning about how much it sucks to have to clear snow off your driveway or start your car in sub-zero temperature. We need more songs about that. We don’t need any more songs to remind us what happy holiday Best Buy is trying unsuccessfully to hide from us. [...]