I must escape the muzak!

[squeequeg]

It's been a busy December for me, with the result that while I've done a lot of Christmas preparations, I don't quite feel like it's Christmas just yet. (As thomascantor would remind me, it's technically only Advent, and so that's just fine; I'll have 12 days of Christmas spirit later on.)

But one of the ways I've tried to get into the Christmas spirit has been through Christmas carols. I used to sing these all over the house as a kid (adding more gray hairs to my mom's head), and I still like a lot of them. Especially the really old ones; "Nova, Nova" is great when sung with Middle English inflections.

However, over the years my tastes in carols have changed, and what I once liked now grates on me. I would be very happy if, say, "The Little Drummer Boy" vanished from the face of the planet entirely. It's like the song was designed to get stuck in people's heads.

(It's probably not in the Christmas spirit to hear the line "then he [Jesus] smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum" and think "Baby Jesus probably had gas, kid. He won't be really smiling till Epiphany at the earliest.")

So here's a question for all of you: What Christmas carols (or other holiday songs -- yes, novelty songs do count) make you want to smash the radio?

Comments

[cycon.livejournal.com]

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
"Sleigh Ride"
"Feliz Navidad" (Really, really not the only Spanish-lyric-containing Christmas song out there!!!!!)
Nearly everything done in a "pop" arrangement.

[thomascantor.livejournal.com]

"Feliz Navidad" (Really, really not the only Spanish-lyric-containing Christmas song out there!!!!!)

Such as Ríu, ríu, chíu, to name one of the better-known. I will rue the day that is made into a pop song, (unsafely assuming that it hasn't).

In addition to the pop arrangements and muzak, I tend not to be fond of a lot of the more sentimental American Christmas carols, which are unfortunately favorites of some people, so pastors everywhere feel a need to have them sung in December. O little town of Bethlehem for example, to the tune of St. Louis. Then again, even some of the better ones are so overdone in and out of church that they become less enjoyable.

[kmunson779.livejournal.com]

You have heard the Monkee's Riu Riu Chiu, haven't you? Not exactly pop, but, I'd say, "stylized".

[cycon.livejournal.com]

Such as Ríu, ríu, chíu, to name one of the better-known.
Or "Fum Fum Fum", or the Catalan "Carol of the Birds", which is so, so gorgeous.

My favorite American ones are probably "We Three Kings", "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "The Babe of Bethlehem". Mostly I'm into the English, French, and German/Austrian ones.