The Yearly Christmas song post, a.k.a. the yearly post, or the blog jump start

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The Yearly Christmas song post, a.k.a. the yearly post, or the blog jump start

24 December 2013 No comments

Welcome to my yearly rant on Christmas songs - and my yearly blog post, I guess. Is a blog really a blog when one only posts once a year? Does this count as persevering in my attempts to be a writer/cultural commentator (and maybe some day work for NYMag/Slate/NYT/New Yorker, in ascending fantastical order)? What is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything?

All unanswerable questions, that.

What is answerable is what particular Christmas songs elicit from the depths of my soul an inexplicable, disproportionate rage, which manifests itself in that pained half-sneer endemic to all New Yorkers, a clenching of the chest, a rapid means of escape (through the skip button or the door), and headache that sounds like a continuous scream of “WHHHYYYYY?!?”

(Since residency, I’ve had a lot of anger issues.)

Being composed of 80% music instead of water, I could probably talk endlessly about songs I dislike and like, even holiday ones. But evidently I have to save this material for a yearly blog post. So let’s discuss “Last Christmas.”

I can’t even type that without an involuntary grimace.

The hate probably boils down to five things: 1) it’s typical 80s music fare, 2) the band name is ridiculous, 3) the lyrics are even worse, 4) it’s pure camp, and 5) it’s not really a Christmas song at all.

Despite being born in the (late) eighties, I developed no love for 80s music. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the heavy use of synth. Maybe it’s the straight beat. Maybe it’s the complete lack of cynicism when the singer looks into the camera with big teased hair, and earnestly croons, “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me/time after time.” NO. So clearly Wham! already has that not going for them.

And this video. The hair. The color-mismatched eyebrows. The breezy, open, button-down shirt. The gross misuse of overlays and fade-ins. You can’t look away, can ya?

Also, the band is called Wham!. Why?(!) Did they get slapped so hard for making horrible, cheesy music that they had to add some random exclamation point to the end of their name? The only reason they get any sort of pardon is because this band gave rise to running joke that is George-Michael Bluth on Arrested Development.

But probably the most infuriating part is the lyrics, the meat of any song. Well yes, George Michael, if you just randomly give your heart away at Christmas, and then revenge-give it to someone else the following year, you will be playing this song on the world’s smallest violin EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I’m sure you thought that last year’s girl was “someone special” too. Another unanswerable question: how much of a dunce can one person be? (At least he admits to “what a fool [he’s] been.”)

I’m also pretty sure we can banish “fire in his heart,” “soul of ice,” and “once bitten, twice shy” from the song lyric compendium for now and forevermore.

Also, if anyone can explain what “A face on a lover with a fire in his heart/A man under cover but you tore me apart,” means, you're a better man than I. Even my extraordinary talent for BS-ing my merry way through classes involving poetry and prose analysis have failed me. My guesses: he’s wearing a mask or attempting a scene from Faceoff? the woman he’s in love with acts heartless like a man or is a transvestite?

I don’t think there is a single arrangement of this song where someone is not singing this without eighties’ style melodrama. There’s sentimental, and there’s saccharine. It’s not a surprise, then, that most people who choose to cover this song are of an overly dramatic bent (Savage Garden, Taylor Swift, Lea Michele - though it’s a given that if she sings anything, it’s automatically going to be on histrionic overdrive), but it is seemingly impossible for even serious singers not to act like total hams while singing this. Every singer will inevitably develop that baby whine of a catch in his or her voice during the course of this song, usually during “gave it awwa-ay“ or “someone spe-shul”

Florence maybe gets away with it simply because she is Florence, and this is just how she sings: awesomely.

Not even dub step is going to save this, Ariana Grande, although I guess bastardizing the verses might temper it slightly.

The xx are not a band I would associate with wallowing drama, and honestly, I don’t even know what is going on with this cover.

Christmas songs should meet at least one of these (personal and arbitrary) criteria: the lyrics should be actually about Christmas, and the song should “be merry and bright.” If the word “Christmas” was not in this song, it would be just a typical eighties’ song about heartbreak. This is just blatant holiday profiteering. Just think of all the royalties they get every year from this festering turd of a record.

And if you’re going borrow on the Christmas spirit to make some change, shouldn’t it be at least a little uplifting? Sure, I’m melancholic, but even I don’t think regret, jealousy, and revenge should be part of the Christmas liturgy. Granted, there are sad Christmas songs (you can’t get much more depressing than the original lyrics to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”) but at least these songs fulfill the first criteria: they’re actually about Christmas.

To close on a less negative note, in keeping with the spirit of the season, here’s a collection of Christmas-related good reads, interesting song renditions, and a Millennial classic that will never grow old, because