Everyone has a favorite, and an anti-favorite. Here are mine.
The worst, most awefulest Christmas song of all time: Christmas Shoes. When Country music goes bad, it's from an excess of maudlin. This dials maudlin up to 11.
It's hard to come up with a favorite, but this one is near the top:
So what are your best and worst?
8 comments:
"Best" is a competition so tough I'm not going to bother. But while I agree that your contender for "worst" is a strong one, I still have to go with "Happy Xmas". "Christmas Shoes" makes me want to change the station..."Happy Xmas" makes me want to pull out a gun and blast away at the radio until the atrocity stops.
Worse than a bad Christmas song is a good one done badly.
You can find good and bad for two of my favorites:
Mary Had a Baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUOf39NLotw
I Wonder As I Wander
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZcSw46YP4Q
Best Religious: Pavarotti's "Adeste Fideles"
Best modern: Mel Torme - The Christmas Song
Worst of all: Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.
I like a lot of Springsteen (mostly early stuff) but, by Ghu, that version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" goes on FOREVER. And it isn't that good.
I hate "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", but I think mostly that's just due to overplaying.
"Wonderful Christmastime" makes me think John was the real talent in the group.
My Grandfather only sung one song a year and only on Christmas Eve, O Holy Night. Which was a shame, because IMHO, he did it as well as these two. So, thanks for the memory. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I find no fault in your choices. "Christmas Shoes" is possibly the worst song ... but there are some other pretty damn bad ones out there! "Jingle Bell Rock" wasn't that good when it was new; the new renditions aren't any better, but they won't stop playing them. Same with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". And "Mary's Boy Child", thankfully, doesn't get much play anymore.
"O Holy Night" has always been one of my favorite religious Christmas hymns (it's in our hymnal, it's a hymn). The melody is lovely and relatively simple, but the harmonic choices it offers are endless; no two arrangements are quite the same, but if sung well they're all fantastic. One of the absolute best versions I've heard was sung by two girls at our old church, but sadly, no recording exists.
Another favorite in our house, partly because it's almost never played on the radio, is Perry Como's "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays". It's the wife's favorite, but it's severely under-played; we only hear it once or twice per year, if we're lucky enough to hear it at all.
Best: Porky Pig's Blue Christmas:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg7HvF3a_Iw
Worst: Jose Feliciano's Feliz Navidad
Best: Sinatra, Christmas Waltz
Worst: Wonderful Christmastime
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