These are among NJ’s most reviled Christmas songs (Opinion)

Good Christmas song? Bad Christmas song? It’s all subjective. Unless it’s YOUR most hated Christmas song, then everyone else is wrong of course.

A funny and arrogant article by Luke O’Neil in Esquire gave his top 20 picks for “sh*ttiest Christmas songs ever recorded.” In it our own poet laureate of a blue collar generation Bruce Springsteen was attacked for his classic rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”

The song made it into the Top 10 worst Christmas songs of all time. O’Neil writes about how many other artists have covered this song over the years but then like a prosecutor concludes “it's this sweaty-dad-ripping-a-hole-in-the-ass-pocket-of-his-Levis groaner that's somehow become ubiquitous in recent years. Some artists have the ability to lose themselves in a cover, elevating the original to heretofore unheard heights, while others, like Springsteen, manage to make everything they ever do sound like the same hokey bar band shtick over and over again forever.”

As a Bruce fan I won’t put coal in O’Neil’s stocking. I’ll shove it up somewhere else.

We asked our listeners what the worst Christmas song of all time is. This is far from a complete list but here’s just a sample of what New Jerseyans are sick of hearing.

“It’s A Marshmallow World In The Winter” by Darlene Love. Christmas nor Santa are ever once mentioned in the lyrics making this the “Die Hard” of Christmas tunes.

“Dominick the Donkey” by Lou Monte. This was this Italian answer to Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. Eee-aww eee-aww!

“Do They Know It’s Christmas” by Band Aid. This was the fundraiser for victims of the Ethiopian famine and apparently some people don’t want to thank God it isn’t them because there was visceral hatred for this humanitarian project.

“Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” by Elmo and Patsy. This song clearly indicts Grandpa liking him for the murder with:

“Now we’re all so proud of Grandpa
He's been takin' this so well
See him in there watchin' football
Drinkin' beer and playin' cards with cousin Belle.”

Not exactly displaying grief, hmmm.

“Christmas Shoes” by NewSong. The sappy story of a boy whose mother is dying at Christmas and his mission to buy her shoes for her to “meet Jesus.” If Jesus cares about footwear in this moment he’s not who I thought he was.

For a true belly laugh check out comic Patton Oswalt’s epic takedown of this song line by line.

“I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” by Gayla Peevey. This kid was ten years old when she recorded this in 1953. Terrible then. Terrible 68 years later. By the way, her follow-up song, attempting to catch lightning twice in a bottle, was “I Wish I Wuz A Whisker (On The Easter Bunny’s Chin.” We do too Gayla, whiskers can’t sing.

“My Grownup Christmas List” by Natalie Cole and David Foster. This song is hated for its schmaltzy lyrics.

“So here's my lifelong wish
My grown up Christmas list
Not for myself but for a world in need
No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end.”

Yyyyyyeahhhh I’d hang onto my receipt.

“Christmas Time Is Here” by Vince Guaraldi. May I say I strongly disagree with this being included on a list of bad holiday music but to each their own.

“Wonderful Christmastime” by Sir Paul McCartney. Not only hated by people in New Jersey, it was the number one worst Christmas song on Luke O’Neil’s list. He called it “a love song between a middle-aged man and the new Casio keyboard he got in his stocking. A song whose awesome black hole of musicality is almost powerful enough to suck the life out of everything McCartney did before.”

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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