Worst Christmas Song

[1995hoo]

BTW, it's not a Christmas song and thus doesn't fit the thread, but I rolled my eyes when we went to a Capitals game on December 9 and, during the pregame, the videoboard displayed "Happy Hanukkah" while the PA played a song about Hanukkah to the tune of "Shake It Off." (To be clear, it was the song that made me roll my eyes, not the message on the videoboard.)

[Rothman]

(6) Sol Invictus says hi.

It's a possibility, but one that is also not supported by historical documents that both (1) pre-date December 25 being on the calendar as Christmas and (2) are an authentic work by the person to whom it is ascribed.

I've studied this subject in quite a bit of depth, and the disappointing conclusion I've come to is that neither the conspiracy nor non-conspiracy theories for the date of Christmas can be definitively corroborated by the historical record.  The documents most commonly used in support of both sides' arguments can be debunked as unreliable for the subject at hand.  In fact, if you're really interested, I have a 22-page paper on the topic here on my work computer hard drive, that I wrote for fun about three years ago;  the conclusions I drew over the course of that study are more nuanced and equivocal than most people seem to want, but sometimes the truth is just not as easy to pin down as we'd like it to be.

Jesus was born on April 6th.

There are decent arguments for a few different dates but, in my opinion, they all stretch things a bit too far.

One intriguing line of thought is to treat the first several verses of Revelation 12 as astronomical sightings;  reading that chapter it in this way, interpreting the Christmas star in Matthew 2 as an astronomical even in which Jupiter and Regulus appeared to unite, and plotting it all against the ecliptic, can yield a potential birthdate of September 11, 3 BC—which just happened to be Rosh Hashanah.

"a woman clothed with the sun ... the moon under her feet ... the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth" (Rev 12)

"Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose ..." (Matt 2)

"the Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev 5)

No, Jesus was born on April 6th, per Talmadge's Jesus the Christ.

[kphoger]

I can likewise offer some private commentary on why Christmas is celebrated in December if anyone is interested.  Suffice to say, most of what you'll find if you google it is anachronistic and probably wrong ...

It surprised me—and quite disconcertingly so—just how many authors cite other authors' assertions as a basis for their argument, without doing the legwork of following the footnotes and tracking down the original source material to confirm it actually says what that other author claims it does.  (Granted, it does tend to be written in Latin, and sometimes these things require conversions between Julian, Gregorian, and even Olympiad calendars, but the onus is on the author to verify this stuff before taking it as fact.)  When you find that type of error in such reputable resources as the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopedia (which I did during the course of my research), it really makes you wonder just who can be trusted.  And God help you if you're relying on Wikipedia or some guy's blog post to give you accurate information on this topic...

[kphoger]

One of my favorite holiday songs is from a 2007 Virgin Mobile commercial.  You might disagree and think it's the worst:

[amroad17]

Dominick the Donkey is one of my favorite Christmas songs.

Never heard of that one.

You'll either love it or hate it.  But, with any luck, even if you hate it, it'll grow on you.

I first heard it just two years ago and wondered why I went so long without hearing it.

It was recorded in 1960 and 2023 was the first Christmas season that I got to hear this nice song.  My grandchildren got me to watch that above You Tube video two weeks ago as they started hearing it two years prior.  Nothing like waiting 63 years to hear a recording for the first time— with this being the second time I've experienced this as I heard Art Carney's version of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" from 1954 for the first time in 2017.

These two are not IMHO among the worst Christmas songs ever.

BTW, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee is the #1 song in the country, according to the Billboard chart.  This song set records with longest time to get to #1 from its first release (1958), oldest female artist to be #1 (2X), and oldest artist to be #1 (2X, as Brenda Lee was 78 the first week this song was #1 and 79 the second week this song was #1).

[hbelkins]

Thanks to this thread, I have heard "Dominick the Donkey" for the first time in my 62 years.

I hope to never hear it again.

[KCRoadFan]

"Believe" by Josh Groban.

[ErmineNotyours]

The first year "Last Christmas" was released, it wasn't available in the United States.  My sister and I listened to evening radio personalities that like to play slightly unusual pop and new wave songs, and one of them got an imported copy of "Last Christmas."  Because it wasn't released here, the DJ told listeners ahead of time to get the tape recorder ready to record the song, which my sister did.  He left a gap of silence before the song and let it fade out.  All because the song wasn't otherwise available except for that play on that station.  Now you can't get away from it.

I've been taking friends around to various Christmas activities this month, and I am bouncing around the three FM stations that play Christmas music.  Only one time did the person in the passenger seat turn off the radio because of a song, and it was for George Michael's "Last Christmas."  Later, the other two stations were both playing commercials and so we went back to the first station, in the middle of playing "Last Christmas" again, but by a different artist.  Rotating three stations is a great way to hear the same song played again a few minutes after hearing it played on another station.

[golden eagle]

Last Christmas

If it's the Taylor Swift version.

The song I don't like is All I Want For Christmas Is You. Hey Santa by Wilson Phillips also annoys me.

[Henry]

The song I don't like is All I Want For Christmas Is You. Hey Santa by Wilson Phillips also annoys me.

I assume you meant the Mariah Carey version on the former, because a completely different song by Vince Vance and the Valiants also has that name (although Kelly Clarkson can be grating at times). And as for the latter, the only two vocalists were Carnie and Wendy Wilson, so it's not exactly a Wilson Phillips song to begin with, like Hold On is.

[golden eagle]

The song I don't like is All I Want For Christmas Is You. Hey Santa by Wilson Phillips also annoys me.

I assume you meant the Mariah Carey version on the former, because a completely different song by Vince Vance and the Valiants also has that name (although Kelly Clarkson can be grating at times). And as for the latter, the only two vocalists were Carnie and Wendy Wilson, so it's not exactly a Wilson Phillips song to begin with, like Hold On is.

Yes, I do mean the Mariah Carey version. I wasn't aware Vince Vance had a song of the same title. I went over to YouTube to listen to a snippet...I'd rather listen to Mariah.

[Rothman]

The song I don't like is All I Want For Christmas Is You. Hey Santa by Wilson Phillips also annoys me.

I assume you meant the Mariah Carey version on the former, because a completely different song by Vince Vance and the Valiants also has that name (although Kelly Clarkson can be grating at times). And as for the latter, the only two vocalists were Carnie and Wendy Wilson, so it's not exactly a Wilson Phillips song to begin with, like Hold On is.

Yes, I do mean the Mariah Carey version. I wasn't aware Vince Vance had a song of the same title. I went over to YouTube to listen to a snippet...I'd rather listen to Mariah.

Don't worry, no one ever means any other version besides Mariah's...

[Takumi]

The song I don't like is All I Want For Christmas Is You. Hey Santa by Wilson Phillips also annoys me.

I assume you meant the Mariah Carey version on the former, because a completely different song by Vince Vance and the Valiants also has that name (although Kelly Clarkson can be grating at times). And as for the latter, the only two vocalists were Carnie and Wendy Wilson, so it's not exactly a Wilson Phillips song to begin with, like Hold On is.

Yes, I do mean the Mariah Carey version. I wasn't aware Vince Vance had a song of the same title. I went over to YouTube to listen to a snippet...I'd rather listen to Mariah.

Don't worry, no one ever means any other version besides Mariah's...

This is AARoads, where there's always some pedantic obscure fact to be found.

[Genghixiani]

Write-ins welcome in the comments.

(I'm working on a song that might be more annoying than any of the above! Here are the lyrics:

U kno Santa got rizz, no cap
Skibidi woah oh oh oh
Tell me it's Christmas without telling me it's Christmas
🤣🤣🤣 😂😂 💀

... and the music is pitched-shifted up 2 octaves and optimized for playing over cell phone speaker)

I have a feeling if that gets into the hands of a 5 year old, they are gonna blast it 24/7

[Road Hog]

"Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" by McCartney is not a bad song if you take out the annoying synthesizers. I've heard covers of it that are actually pretty good.

[Hobart]

"Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" by McCartney is not a bad song if you take out the annoying synthesizers. I've heard covers of it that are actually pretty good.

I find it way too repetitive; 90% of the song is "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" repeated over an over again, with maybe some additional verses sprinkled in. There's a lot of "novelty" Christmas songs (like "Holy Shit It's Christmas" or "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus") that I find objectively better, not because they're parody works, but because they actually have different words every once in a while.

[zzcarp]

"Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" by McCartney is not a bad song if you take out the annoying synthesizers. I've heard covers of it that are actually pretty good.

I find it way too repetitive; 90% of the song is "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" repeated over an over again, with maybe some additional verses sprinkled in. There's a lot of "novelty" Christmas songs (like "Holy Shit It's Christmas" or "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus") that I find objectively better, not because they're parody works, but because they actually have different words every once in a while.

"Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" is proof that the rumors of Paul's death in the 60s were true, at least creatively.

[vdeane]

^ I can't comment much of the original, but I do like "Wonderful Deep Space Nine".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cCTgRax94o

[kurumi]

This song seems to have lyrics straight out of ChatGPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OtIF30n4ZY