The Case for Christmas Carols

I have been very lucky this year. Well, perhaps it has less to do with luck than a tendency to avoid the mainstream, and my own blinkered approach to what is going on around me.

But this year, I have been pleasantly surprised to realise that, with only a few days to go until Christmas, I have managed to avoid most (though not all) of the hideous, cloying and annoying Christmas Carols this festive season.

Perhaps "Christmas Carols" is actually not what I should be calling these Yuletide offerings. For me, a carol invokes some kind of religious element, which, besides a call to shop to save the global economy (which is badly in need of ressurrection, though that kind of thing tends to be celebrated around Easter), most of these popular songs do not possess.

A particular pet hare of mine is Snoopy's Christmas. No idea why, as it is a fairly banal song, but perhaps its supposed popularity puts my hackles up. I have heard this one a few times this year, and the line "why the Baron gave up, we'll never know" really annoys me considering, one verse later, the Baron and Snoopy are sharing Christmas Port, so surely Snoopy would have asked the guy why the Baron didn't kill Snoopy stone dead over France in a hail of German bullets.

A few others that snuck through have been bastardised remakes of "classic" Christmas songs. I heard an even blander re-recording of Wham!'s saccharinely sentimental Last Christmas, but managed to avoid the hideous remake of the only Christmas song worth its salt, the Pogue's Christmas in New York, where they attempt to make the song of drunken spousal abuse more "family friendly" by replacing the lines "you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot" with something like "you scumbag, you maggot, you're cheap and your haggard" - that's really telling him, love.

Of course, one that did slip in to my consciousness is Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas, the unbelievably 80s anthem of condescension to the starving masses in Africa who are probably not Christian (and so really should not be expected to know it is Christmas) and who live in a climate where snow at Christmas time would be the herald of a major global climatic catastrophe, rather than a sign of hot chocolates and misteletoe. Still, it is catchy, even with a pre-toilet George Michael, a pre-manacles Boy George, and no female or non-white artists deserving of a solo (that I can recall; please correct me if I am wrong).

However, today, I will be heading out towards the malls for a few final shopping stops. I expect there will be Christmas songs all around me, but I am hoping I can avoid paying them any heed whatsoever. Time to prepare myself with a song that can overpower almost anything else...

This is the song that doesn't end / it just goes on and on my friend...

Verdict: Jesus may be the reason for the season, but the visual signs are all in tinsel, and the aural indicators tend to involve over-earnest, screaming Americanand British pop artists. And Cliff Richard comes out to play. Christmas Carols/Songs contribution to musical credibility: - 8 out of 10.