Carols from Hell

I’m highly in favor of Christmas carols, at least in principle. I’ve got a perfectly dreadful singing voice, which I exercise as little as humanly possible. That always makes for awkward moments during sing-alongs, because I simply do not sing along. However, just because I can’t do it myself doesn’t mean I have to hate it when other people do it. As long as it’s a good – or at least heartfelt – attempt to “make a joyful noise,” it’s got my support.

With a handful of exceptions. Though the vast majority of the carol catalog doesn’t do much for me one way or another, a small set of Yuletide songs absolutely set my teeth on edge. Here’s a quick list of the culprits:

 

We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Actually, I’m fine with this one as long as the singers know when to cut it off. It’s got a bit too much of the Dickensian English flavor to it, but I learned a long time ago that I just have to be a good sport about that aspect of the holiday. If it’s sung too fast it gets a little eerie (we’ll get to “The Carol of the Bells” in a minute). But as long as it’s a simple wish for a happy holiday, it’s hard to reply with anything but “thanks, you too.”

However, if the performance lasts long enough we get to the trouble spot. It’s all happy this and good tidings that, and then suddenly it gets pushy. “Bring us a figgy pudding,” the wassailers demand. “And bring it right here.” How should one respond to such a shameless corruption of the give-without-expectation-of-reward theme of the season? “I don’t have any freakin’ figgy pudding, whatever the hell that is. And if I did, I’d be giving it to my family instead of feeding it to yodeling beggars.”

But then it gets worse! “We won’t go until we get some. We won’t go until we get some. We won’t go until we get some. So bring it right here.” Not going, eh? Okay, how about this: “Get your asses off my sidewalk. Get your asses off my sidewalk. Get your asses off my sidewalk. Or I’ll spray you with the hose.” There, now the whole Christmas spirit is ruined.

Sleigh Ride – You know the old joke about Job? The one I have in mind finds our hero bemoaning his fate and asking God why he’s made to suffer. “I don’t know, Job,” God replies. “There’s just something about you that pisses me off.”

That’s sort of how I feel about this song. Actually, if I had to put my finger on it, what really gets me is that I love Christmas for its underlying values, not for its superficial trappings. And this song’s all about the latter. Sleigh rides, Currier & Ives prints and the like are all things we can buy. To be sure, this is a glad-hearted celebration of such stuff, as opposed to the grim mania of Black Friday shopping riots. Nonetheless, it detracts from the simple spirit of Whos who can have Christmas even without the parties and presents.

Besides, if we can do away with this one then orchestras will no longer be forced to purchase the two-boards-slapping-together instrument that probably has to be made from special acoustical boards imported from the Black Forest. The only piece besides this one that actually uses it is J.S. Bach's little-known, seldom-performed Ausfahrt Nacht Die Kitchen Und Fetchen Sie Meine Weinerschnitzel in the original German.

I Saw Three Ships – Same gimme-presents deal here. Ooh, ships full of stuff for us! This song reminds me of the passage in Amadeus where Salieri accuses his father of praying to God to protect commerce. That’s a “why are you bothering God with this?” moment at any time of year, but in the Christmas season it should be considered particularly inapt.

O Come All Ye Faithful – If I ever get around to making a list of my favorite carols I’ll include “Adeste Fidelis” on it, so the problem here is entirely in the translation. I like the emphasis on the “Happy birthday, Jesus” aspect of the holiday. But then the original Latin gets twisted into some genuinely awkward English. I spent a year in high school unsuccessfully trying to learn Latin, but I’d rather go back and give it another try than sit through lines such as “Now in flesh appearing.” Sounds like an ad for porn. And don’t even get me started on “Lo! He abhors not the virgin’s womb.” Ick. Is this a Christmas miracle or an anatomy lesson?

Jingle Bell Rock – Somewhere in the 30s or 40s the world’s talent for producing Christmas carols abruptly pulled the croak chain. Though I admit I don’t care for the likes of “White Christmas” as much as some of the older, more religious stuff, I’d sit through Bing Crosby for hours before willingly enduring a single performance of bubblegum like this. It’s like “Sleigh Ride” retooled to climb the charts. The moment phrases such as “high rotation” apply to a song, it ceases to be a Christmas carol in any meaningful sense of the word.

And the same goes for “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” and other songs of this general ilk.

The Carol of the Bells – A stand-up comedian – sorry, I don’t remember who it was – once called this “The Christmas Psycho Theme.” That hits it right on the nose. I can just imagine Janet Leigh showering off when suddenly the curtain is yanked aside, this song starts playing, and she’s killed with a butcher knife by a fat guy in a red suit. The frantic pace and the minor key just don’t say Christmas to me at all.

Even if I liked the song itself, it’s got some bad associations. For obvious reasons, it’s a perpetual favorite of bell choirs. Bell ringers are like professional table tennis players or people who make houses out of playing cards; though I admire their skill and dedication, I’d prefer not to be called upon to appreciate them while they practice their art.

Then of course there’s the inclusion of this tune in the infamous Sweeney Sisters Christmas medley on Saturday Night Live. Once the Sweeneys do a song, it belongs to them forever.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town – After I bashed the Jolly Big Fat Lie last year, I couldn’t let this whole list go without at least one entry from the vast catalog of Santa songs. Of all of them, this one is by far the creepiest. Every time I hear it, I’m brought mindful that the loose translation of tonton macoute is “uncle with a bag,” an evil spirit who stuffs children into a sack and carries them off.

“He sees you when you’re sleeping”? “He knows when you’re awake”? Is this guy the joyous spirit of Christmas or a KGB operative? The whole thing has an eerie, Orwellian flavor. It gives me nightmares about Big Santa and the Ministry of Elves making a list and checking it twice to find out who’s been doubleplusgood and who’s going to get a ticket to Room 101 in their stockings this year.

The Twelve Days of Christmas – This song suffers from a host of fatal flaws. First, it is absolutely, positively, entirely too damn long. If you start with “On the 12th day of Christmas …” and just do one run-through, no problem. But when you have to sing each bit over and over just for the sake of trudging through to the end, it becomes a “99 Bottles of Egg Nog on the Wall” experience.

This problem is magnified a thousand times when one has to sit through an instrumental rendition. Years later, I still vividly recall a pre-Vespers performance of this ditty by KU’s xylophone choir. By the time they were done, I could have sworn we’d just sat through “The 247 Days of Christmas.” Indeed, the only thing that stopped them from tinkling merrily away was the need to clear the stage so the actual concert could commence.

The next question, naturally enough, is just how much you’d end up with if your so-called true love really gave you all that junk on all those days. Here’s how it breaks down:

            12 partridges in pear trees (1 bird/tree combo per day for 12 days)
            22 turtle doves (2 birds x 11 days)
            30 French hens (3 x 10)
            36 calling (or collie, if you prefer) birds (4 x 9)
            40 gold rings (5 x 8)
            42 geese a laying (6 x 7)
            42 swans a swimming (7 x 6)
            40 maids a milking (8 x 5)
            36 ladies dancing (9 x 4)
            30 lords a leaping (10 x 3)
            22 pipers piping (11 x 2)
            12 drummers drumming (12 x 1)

That’s 364 things you now have to find a place for, making your true love almost as bad as a stalker who gives you something every blessed day of the year.

Of course you can probably get rid of some of it. Unless you just happen to have a huge lake in your back yard, the geese and swans will probably depart on their own. And with a little chasing, the rest of the birds can probably be persuaded to leave. The gold rings can be pawned. But if you think regifting a fruitcake is tough, wait until you try to fob 40 milkmaids off on a friend or family member. Not even Goodwill is going to take that many lords and ladies. And by the time the neighbors have phoned in several noise complaints about the pipers and drummers, you’ll likely find yourself in search of a true love with either less money or more common sense.

Next, as Eddie Izzard points out, once you get past the five gold rings the rest of it is hard to remember. I won’t try to re-create his version of what you can sing if you don’t remember the actual words. If you haven’t seen “Dress to Kill,” quit reading this and go rent it right now.

Beyond how hard the whole shopping list is to recall, however, is the sheer strangeness of the gifts themselves. It’s such an odd set of choices that it leads me to suspect it’s one of those secret kabala or Masonic things that laypeople like ourselves aren’t supposed to know about. Are nine ladies covertly dancing over gateways to other levels of consciousness? Are the French hens actually supposed to be the architects of Solomon’s temple? Should we be scouring the backgrounds of DaVinci paintings in search of swimming swans and laying geese?

Still, the greatest and most enduring problem with this song would still be there if the gifts were limited to a gold ring and an orange with cloves stuck all over it. Yet again the prime purpose of Christmas is getting presents. This song doesn’t even bother with the notion that one should give in return. There’s no “and in exchange I gave my true love a bowling ball and a can of Simonize.” Just gimme gimme gimme.

If I’ve gotta sit through a carol this long, I insist that it be more morally uplifting than that.