Thursday, December 24, 2009

Top 5 Worst Lyrics in Christmas Songs

I'm a big fan of Christmas music and really just Christmas in general. For about a month now it's all I've been listening to. I'm also a fan of well written lyrics. Some people can ignore the words to songs and enjoy them despite their failings. I can't do that. So here I'm airing my grievances about the worse lyics in otherwise well loved Christmas songs.

5. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick

Christmas comes this time each year
Oooooooo oooooooo

The biggest problem writers of Christmas music run into is having nothing to say. You know you want to write a Christmas song but you haven't thought of it past that. Here Brian Wilson, known for penning some of the most beautiful music of the past century and lying in bed, gives up and tells us that Christmas happens annually. A good Christmas song evokes nostalgia or hope or something. Little Saint Nick reminds us that Christmas will be here next year too.

4. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!

Bono is at his most Bono when he tells us off here.Oh yes, we're calling out Bono specifically here. Do They Know It's Christmas? is full of overripe lines but it's the conviction that Bono belts this one out that makes it suck most. The sheer amount of superstars singing on the track made it stupidly popular but Bono is what made it bad.

3. Elton John - Step Into Christmas

Welcome to my Christmas song
I'd like to thank you for the year
To be fair, Elton John doesn't write his own lyrics, Bernie Taupen does. Their relationship works thusly: Bernie spends an hour typing up a stack of papers that contain "lyrics" and gives them to Elton. Elton spends less than an hour trying to write music for those lyrics. If he can't think of anything right away he throws that page out. This is the process that results in Elton telling us that this Christmas song is his Christmas song. You can tell that Bernie's only order was, "Write a Christmas song for Elton" and he ran with it.

2. Run DMC - Christmas Time in Hollis

It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens
Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees
Decorate the house with lights at night
Snow's on the ground, snow white so bright
In the fireplace is the yule log
Beneath the mistle toe as we drink egg nog
The rhymes you hear are the rhymes of Darryl's
But each and every year we bust Chrsitmas carrols

I've included a much larger portion of this song because there is so much wrong. Christmas in Hollis is easily the best Christmas rap song ever, and it's cheesy lyrics are a big part of that. The song is trying it's hardest to establish that it is all about Christmas while they are desparate to do RUN DMC's usual thing. This results in out of place ryhmes like the Yule Log/Egg Nog couplet. The biggest problem I have is the completely out of place "And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees." The worst thing you can do in a Christmas song is state what happens at Christmas litterally and RUN DMC delivers that here.

1. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

You know Dasher and Dancer
And Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid
And Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Until now I've focused on pop Christmas songs but now it's time to take on a classic. It's as simple as this: If Rudolph is the most famous Raindeer of all, then why would you be askin if I can recall him? Conversly, since this song is what made him famous, how the heck is he the most famous of all when his wasn't yet? Clearly nobody thought this through.