Today we’re going to tackle a subject that is about as warmed over as the Salisbury steaks that sit under the heat lamp at a junior high school cafeteria: terrible Christmas songs. By definition, every Christmas song is a terrible Christmas song, but these are the true bottom of the barrel. To put it another way, when “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” – the Less than Jake version, by the way – or Gary Glitter’s “Another Rock and Roll Christmas” don’t even make the list, you know that nothing good is in store for you in the near future. On the plus side, all of you reading this have the option of not clicking on any of these links. I had to listen to all of this (and then some). By the way, this one is dedicated to all the poor and suffering retail workers of the world. Without their valiant sacrifice and desperate need for employment, this season just wouldn’t be the same. So grab your eggnog and let’s dive in head first!
10. 12 Days of Christmas – by Anybody [but especially your kid’s 4th grade class for the annual elementary school Holiday Concert] (Watch it)
This is the single longest song that has ever been written in the history of songs. Oh sure, there are songs that take more minutes of time to listen to, but they are nowhere near as repetitive. During the entire six hour process that it takes to hear this song, you will be wishing for naught by the sweet embrace of death. The worst part is that you will never choose to listen to this; it will be foisted upon you in some place from where you cannot escape. Forever trapped.
Since I didn’t give you guys a certain artist for this piece, I’ll present you with a bonus of terrible: “Redneck 12 Days of Christmas” by Jeff Foxworthy.
9. Oi to the World – No Doubt
Remember back when No Doubt kind of counted as ska?
Or rather, remember ska?
There was a weird time in the mid to late 90s where pop-punk and white-boy reggae met up with each other, those band geeks who played horns were all of a sudden in bands, and then as quickly as they appeared, they went away. The people who listened to this music with a fervent devotion can now be spotted in their natural habitat: a dive bar with PBR on tap. They will be mustachioed or bearded (even the women, somehow), wearing a tight flannel shirt, extremely thin or incredibly obese (never in the middle), and sitting on a fixed gear bike. If you bring up their past, they will publically disavow ever once owning a Reel Big Fish or Mustard Plug album and then talk about Animal Collective. But you’ll know the truth.
Anyway, this song is originally by the Vandals, is about a fight between a racist skinhead and an Indian immigrant in England who has an Oi! band and actually ends up saving the racist skinhead, so yeah there’s that. Plus, this song serves as a reminder that Mrs. Gavin Rossdale used to be in a band before she started singing about “hollaback girls,” whatever that is.
8. Do They Know it’s Christmas? – Band Aid
Like the more-than-slightly-off second cousin of “We are the World,” this song was designed to get people together to help Africa. Except this one was both racist and came before “We are the World.” My only hope is that Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson saw “Do they Know” and were like, “oh, hell no!” And then they got Springsteen in there to show Bono how it’s DONE, son. Also, the guy who is famous for singing “Day-O” was involved somehow, because why not?
Back to “Do They Know.” This song is just wrong on so many levels. It’s cheesy as hell and if Spandau Ballet and Wham! are the best they could get, that should have said something to the producers.
7. Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney
In this song, Sir Paul McCartney makes his most compelling argument for why he should have hung it up once The Beatles were over.
McCartney is nearly universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest songwriters in the history of popular music and a song that sounds like a synthesizer just ate a huge meal at Taco Bell is the best that he could come up with for a Christmas song? I think he knew that by sheer virtue of being a not-dead member The Beatles and a song with Christmas in the title, he’d have a hit and another pile of money on which to sleep so he just cranked this one out before lunch and took off.
6. I am Santa Claus – Bob Rivers
Like the unwanted second cousin of “Weird” Al Yankovic [why does it feel like I used this analogy earlier?], Bob Rivers has been crapping out parody versions of songs for years. This is just one of the many, many, many Christmas themed ones. If you ever wanted to know what Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” sounded like with lyrics about being Santa, then this song pretty much hits the nail square on the head. If you wanted to listen to a good song, you probably aren’t in the market for “Iron Man” with lyrics about Santa in the first place. When I was a kid, I loved this song. Little kids are stupid.
5. Condoms for Christmas – Milo Bobbins (Listen to it)
This is one of those songs that could have only come from the era when sex would kill you if you had it, aka the 1990s.
Yes, there was a time when AIDS was everywhere, airborne, and incurable. I was in junior high and high school during this time. I am quite frankly, lucky to be alive. If it wasn’t for musicians like TLC and Milo Bobbins telling all of us the importance of proper condom use, the human race would all be dead and replaced by mole people by now.
4. Jingle Bells – Barking Dogs
Every year your local radio station will play this as you get up for work at 6:45 AM on their morning “drivetime zoo crew” show and talk about how funny this is. It wasn’t funny the first time and it’s still not funny the one hundred, eighty-second time. Just stop it! This is how Berkowitz went off the edge, I swear! This song is bad enough that if I even see a dog within 15 minutes of hearing this abomination, there is a chance I will get down on my knees and start barking in his face, only punctuating my psychotic barking episode with screaming bursts of “HOW DO YOU LIKE IT, HUH?”
3. Christmas Don’t Be Late (Remix) – Alvin and the Chipmunks
Not content to ruin our collective childhoods by putting together this horrid atrocity of cinematic dreck on the silver screen, the producers of this “film” decided they needed to sully our view of the once lovable Chipmunks a little more by rerecording the classic, “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” Let’s not kid ourselves here, “Christmas Don’t Be Late” is pretty terrible to begin with, but combining that with the new Chipmunks is enough to propel this into a heretofore unknown stratosphere of awful.
2.Please Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk this Christmas – John Denver (Watch it)
Good lord, how depressing can we get? Written from the point of view of a seven-year-old, who is now worrying about what will happen this Christmas because of prior events, “Please Daddy” is arguably one of the most depressing songs ever written. Or at least it would be if it wasn’t sung by John Denver, who makes everything sound much happier than it should.
But seriously, I know the first thing that I want to hear when it comes to Christmas music is a song about an abusive alcoholic father, a broken-down mother, and a fearful child. Nothing really says Christmas to me like that ensemble cast.
1. Christmas Shoes – New Song
NO! I REFUSE TO LISTEN TO THIS! I WOULD RATHER LISTEN TO AN ENTIRE NICKELBACK ALBUM THEN HEAR THIS ONE TIME! NO!
It’s a song about how Jesus cares about what’s on mom’s feet when she’s dead or something. It doesn’t matter. It’s awful and overwrought and you might as well just listen to it for yourself.
This article was written as a Christmas present to you by Joe Vampire, who listened to these songs so you don’t have to. He works for a company that sells Halloween costumes, including music, movie, and superhero.