Deck the hall with hunks of holly

[venta]

It is the time of year where one is obliged to give thanks to Shane McGowan and Kirsty MacColl. When shops are playing Frosty the Snowman and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree on some kind of homicide-inducing loop, there is exactly one non-execrable Christmas Song.

And, owing to checking a spelling there, I have just learnt that execrable and excreable are different words.

Comments

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

The Christmas Song
by London after midnight

Solstice Bells
By Jethro Tull

[venta.livejournal.com]

OK, I don't actually know either of those. If you're willing/able to throw mp3s my way, then I will issue an Official Declaration on the subject :)

I don't imagine LAM gets played in shops much, though Jethro Tull might plausibly.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of playing that game, but decided that you meant non-execreble "Christmas songs that every bugger plays all the time".

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I could spell execrable 9 times out of 10 with no trouble whatsoever until you confused me.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er, yeah, I did really.
Though I'll settle for non-execrable songs which could plausibly be played in toyshops.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

So for example not "Christmas at Ground Zero" or "The Night Santa went Crazy" by Weird Al?

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I do wish I hadn't downloaded it off Kazaa and then vastly overplayed it to myself last year... I still know it's good, but my reaction to it has become rather dulled.

[zotz]

A band called Porn Orchard recorded a Christmas song for a radio station compilation a few years ago, and it's quite good. It's called This Holiday Season, and it's a spoof duet between Tom Waits and Peter Murphy about how awful Christmas is when your career depends on being miserable. It tends to curculate on the Evil Filesharing Networks™ as actually being by Waits and Murphy and called "Christmas Sucks".

[zotz]

2000 Miles isn't so bad either.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

One of us is _so_ wrong. Unfortunately it's rarely you so it's probably me. But I really, really, cannot stand that bl***y Fairytale of New York record.

Going off on a different but related tack - how do you decide what makes a Christmas song? Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" obviously is. But what about Christmas hits? A Christmas compilation I have has on it "Only You" by the Flying Pickets - a novelty hit at Christmas, but not a Christmas song. And if you allow that, should you also allow others such as "All Around My Hat" by Steeleye Span (in my mind that is a Christmas song because it was a hit at Christmas in 1975 and they did have a genuine Christmas song - Gaudete - a couple of years earlier)? Or Human League's "Don't You Want Me" which was the Christmas number one in 1981, but is otherwise completely un-Christmassy?

[venta.livejournal.com]

how do you decide what makes a Christmas song

Er, is it about Christmas ? Is it about Christmassy things - snowmen, presents, chestnuts, feuding relatives, etc ? So no, "Only You" doesn't count even if it is on your Christmas compilation.

Prompted by Onebyone, I'd just gone off and googled for a list of Christmas Number Ones (http://www.ccl4.org/xmasno1.html). Most of them aren't (in my view) Christmas songs.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

Good. We agree on that at least! "Only You" should not be there. Nor, IMHO, should "Stay Another Day" by E17 (a) for the reasons already discussed, and (b) because it is excrutiatingly bad. However, IIRC they Confused and Muddled this argument by dressing up all Christmassy and having fake snow and stuff when the performed it. Damn them.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Damn their eyes, damn their breeches, and damn their oily hides.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

What do you know about East 17's breeches?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Nothing specific other than that they ought to be damned. Which is plenty.

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough given your definition of Christmas, an arguement could be made that "Fairytale of New York" is not a christmas song.

Sure it mentions christmas but is it really about christmas? Or do the events happen at christmas.....

However I also agree with you, it chears my heart to hear it playing in shopping centeres. I sometimes stop and wait for the lines "you scumbag, you magget, you cheapy lousey fagot" before carrying on my way......

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

is it really about christmas? Or do the events happen at christmas.....

's probably an alligator. You get them in songs. And in New York. Well known fact.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I suggest you mean allegory. They're more common in songs, although I'm not so sure you find them in New York.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I know what I mean.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

You were just hoping I couldn't find a pciture of an allegory, weren't you?

(Anyway, that's just a handbag, or a pair of boots. I guess, you do find them in songs.)

What you really want to do is cite song references, and I don't think Flanders and Swann will help you on this one ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

What you really want to do is cite song references

Like "See you later, alliogator" ?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's a picture of an allegory, it's a picture which is an allegory. So this is a picture of an allegory.

And surely there are plenty of songs about alligators.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

...and pictures of alligators !

Although I prefer the tree sort myself.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Injoketastic :)

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Get me an allegory and make it snappy...

oh wait, you did.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

I don't mind Gaudete (in moderation), though I do now have trouble keeping Mott the Hoople's Golders Green out of my head when I hear it...

Top Tunes

[marjory.livejournal.com]

What about 'Little Drummer Boy', this year's wondrous duet with Jessica and Ashlee Simpson?

Okay... That wasn't very funny of me at all... Quite disturbing in fact...

Re: Top Tunes

[venta.livejournal.com]

You've lost me - I know nothing of this record of which you speak.

Re: Top Tunes

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Well Jessica and Ashlee Simpson are sort of doyennes of MTV (which I watch on occasion as German TV is very bad and sometimes they have decent music on plus I like a bit of background hum). Jessica is chiefly known for a reality TV show called Newlyweds in which she copes with such traumas as learning how to switch off her own alarm clockand make her hairdresser's appointment on time. Apparently she also sings! Ashlee is her little sister who sings a bit more and has her own reality TV show. Both shows are quite cheesy yet oddly moreish... Well, a real scream, to be frank!

IMHO the single is basically girlie, cash-in, bubble-gum stuff. But then that sort of thing does tend to end up on Christmas compilations by the shedload!

[Marjory's Note to Self: Cut down on lowbrow pop-culture references here.]