Best and Worst Christmas songs

I'm no fan of "Last Christmas", but purely because the music bores me. The lyrics aren't that different from "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", which I really do like.

I've always interpreted "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" to be about someone who has been away for a while or is dead, and not necessarily about a breakup. It's more about nostalgia, whereas "Last Christmas" is more about bitterness.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Regarding the comment above about "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year": telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve night is a British Christmas tradition (or at least it used to be). If you read Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the prologue takes place on Christmas Eve with a group of friends telling ghost stories around the fire. The character named Douglas is the one who trots out the story about the governess hired to look after two orphaned children. (Also, The Innocents (1961), so far the best movie adaptation of The Turn of the Screw, premiered on a Christmas Eve.)

I'm not sure about good or bad, but this one, featuring none other than Thurl Ravenscroft himself as Santa, is certainly weird!

Edited by megaeliz on Dec 15th 2021 at 4:32:23 AM

5th best: South Park’s “Lonely Jew on Christmas”

4th best: Lonely Island’s “D*ck in a Box”

3rd best: “Something Stuck up in the Chimney”

2nd best: Stephen Colbert’s “Another Christmas Song”

5th worst: “Little Drummer Boy” (my Dad’s least favorite)

4th worst: “Baby it’s Cold Outside” (SNL had a Bill Cosby version)

3rd worst: “Feliz Navidad” is so poorly sung, but there was this tone deaf girl on my bus who always sang along in this thick accent that will never leave my head now

2nd worst: “Santa Baby” (you’re wh*ring yourself off to a married old man)

I have two links here. One is my favorite and one is my least favorite Christmas song. Can you guess which is which? Should be easy, right?

Edited by Sailor11sedna on Dec 25th 2021 at 10:23:36 AM

Finally posted DB Scarlet Mirror: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13689952930A49781400&page=97#2423

I really hate “Last Christmas”. It just feels like a chore to listen to.

“Now! Let us engage in the art of deduction!”

Best religious: "O Holy Night". Always considered it a beautiful song.

Best secular: "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Three favorite Christmas albums: A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Together, Christmas Eve and Other Stories

Five worst Christmas songs: "Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas" (in an otherwise good album, this makes me cringe), "Last Christmas" (sucks as a Christmas song AND as a breakup song), "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" (do I need to elaborate?), "Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS This Year" (... dafuq?), "The Little Drummer Boy" (Only Bing/Bowie and Ringo make it bearable)

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (all editions) progress: 436/1089 (40.04%)

Nat "King" Cole's version of "O Holy Night" always gives me chills. That chord change on: Fall on your knees and hear the angel voices… Perfect.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Fun fact about "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)": Phil Spector also had Darlene Love record a de-Christmas-ed version during the same sessions. Apparently the idea was that if it was still at its height of popularity by Christmas, he'd put out the non-Christmas version, DJs could keep playing it January of the next year and beyond, and listeners would presumably go buy the same song again but with different lyrics. I almost feel like this version could be used for some kind of gaslighting prank? Like, have it playing in the car when you pick up a friend some summer day, and when they ask why you're listening to Christmas music, act like you have no idea what they're talking about and have them pay attention to the lyrics.

One Christmas album I've decided I really like is Bad Religion's Christmas Songs - almost all traditional carols you've heard covered a million times before, but they really manage to make them fit their Southern Californian Pop Punk / "melodic hardcore" sound - helps that vocal harmonies are one of their trademarks. For similar reasons I find myself really liking Cocteau Twins' version of "Frosty The Snowman", where they similarly manage to make a standard Christmas song sound like something they would have written themselves.

The past couple years, Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg has become of my favorites (despite not being thoroughly Christmas-themed). But I like the lyrics and tune.

It has an interesting backstory too. It's based on an actual run in Fogleberg had with a former girlfriend.

Worst? I dunno... Santa Baby by Ertha Kitt still makes me irk.

With all the memes about women choosing a bear over a man, Hollywood might wanna get on an 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' adaptation