What not to listen to tomorrow

Just so you won’t be caught unawares, our columnist screens for the worst Christmas songs ever, narrowly avoiding slamming his head into a desk ....

IT’S finally come! The night before Christmas! Which means you’re probably at your limit for hearing Christmas carols and songs – I’m looking at you, Last Christmas by Wham.

But isn’t it strange how some songs became Christmas classics?

Wham’s Last Christmas is a pretty decent example. It’s not really much of a Christmas song except for the words “last Christmas” in the chorus; it’s mostly about a relationship that went bad, and it’s sung by a British band most millennials wouldn’t know. But the song is the bestselling single in British music chart history that never actually made it to No.1. Which is a roundabout way of saying it is really popular. And now has become a sort of Christmas standard. It has even been covered by the likes of Coldplay, Taylor Swift, and Carly Rae Jepson. Last Christmas has become a classic and gives Wham something to be known for other than their crazy, blowdried 1980s hair.

But for every contemporary song that becomes immortalised as a holiday classic you can bet there’s a whole slew of other offerings that get chucked by the wayside. So here is my definitive list of the worst Christmas songs ever (arranged from bad to monumentally awful).

Frosty Bounce by Diplo (tinyurl. com/Star2-Diplo) – An electronic sort of dance hall version of Frosty The Snowman that is really an assault on your ears.

Hearing the chorus of Frosty The Snowman played on tin drums over and over and over really makes the 1:44 run time of this song seem like 10:44, and at the end you feel no closer to Christmas (but definitely closer to death).

Funky, Funky, Xmas by New Kids On The Block (tinyurl.com/ Star2-Funky) – With a truly terrible 1990s beat, one of the New Kids badly voice-acting Santa, inept rapping, and a chorus that sounds like the producer forgot to put about four layers of instruments over it, this is one song that will make your Christmas decidedly unfunky.

And just when you think it can’t get any worse, the

Kids start singing/rapping

“Ho ho ho”, and you want to smash your head into a desk to make it end ... then you remember you can just stop playing this insipid track. Track stopped.

Christmas

Tree by Lady

Gaga (tinyurl.com/ Star2-Gaga) –

What is it with artists sexualising Christmas songs?

In this song, Lady Gaga’s Christmas is actually a metaphor for her nether regions – which doesn’t work for multiple reasons. Then there’s her alluding to Christmas orgies under the mistletoe where “we will take off our clothes”.

I suppose this song is supposed to be a bit of fun, but it’s definitely not the choice when you’re sitting with your family digesting the festive meal, or at any other time really. Thanks, Gaga, I’ll never look at my Christmas tree the same way again. Back Door Santa by Bon Jovi (tinyurl.com/ Star2-Bon-Jovi) – First off, this doesn’t sound like a Christmas song even if it is originally from 1968. Not that a Christmas song has to have jingling bells, but it just sounds like awful 1980s rock.

And again with the sexualised with lyrics, like “They call me Back Door Santa / I make my runs about the break of day / I make all the little girls happy / while the boys are out to play”. Then later the song seems to allude to the joy of prostitution with the lines, “I keep some change in my pocket, in case the children are home / I give ’em a few pennies so that we can be alone”.

Bon Jovi songs are best being drunkenly yelled as loud as possible in a karaoke, so just steer clear of the man and his band at Christmas.

Santa Claus Has Got The AIDS by Tiny Tim (tinyurl.com/Star2sick) – WTH. Really, just WTH?

Tiny Tim, the ukulele specialist who gave us such creepy hits as Tiptoe Through The Tulips, hits all the wrong buttons with this I-suppose-satirical Christmas song about Santa becoming infected with HIV/AIDS. Besides being wildly inappropriate for the holiday season, it’s pretty insensitive about the entire becoming-infected-witha-terminal-illness thing.

This was recorded in 1980 so perhaps at the time it was a hilarious musical foray worthy of Flight Of The Conchords, but I have a feeling it sucked as much back then as it does now.

Please Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas by Bob Denver (tinyurl.com/Star2-drunk) – I suppose you just sing about what you know, but a little boy pleading with his father not to get drunkenly belligerent on Christmas is a bit much.

This song covers all the awful trappings of holiday alcoholism, including a mother trying to usher her young son to bed before he realises what a mess his father really is, and the same drunken father passing out under the Christmas tree while the young boy’s mother cries, all of it wrapped up in a folksy nostalgic tune like we’re supposed to look back on these horrifying moments of our childhoods with fondness ....

Well, not every song can be a holiday classic but it’s not for lack of trying. Now I’m off to check out another holiday tradition: Die Hard, a movie that must be watched only on Christmas Eve and no other time. Happy holidays!

Avid writer Jason Godfrey – who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at star2@ thestar.com.my.