In all honesty, Christmas music is dark as hell. For a start, there are the retail workers who are unrelentingly subjected to these songs â their minds slowly eroded to the tune of âThe Most Wonderful Time Of Yearâ, the rum-pump-a-pumping of âStop The Cavalryâ like daggers to the heart. Itâs easy to imagine the experience being akin to getting stuck on the âItâs A Small Worldâ ride at Disneyland for somewhere close to 500 hours, but in a retail park somewhere off the A3. A shop-floor hell in a building atop a slab of wasteland concrete.
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Also, on top of that, thereâs also the content of the songs themselves, which on a few occasions has been anything but festive â a world where depressing narratives lay beneath the guise of festive cheer. So call us scrooges, call us what you will: here are the Christmas no-noâs that should be erased from the playlist or at the least reconsidered over some eggnog before being unleashed unto the masses, coating Yuletide with itâs true colours of dismal and blue depression. Happy holidays!!!There's a very distinct quality to the British that mostly involves saying something is fine when it's absolutely not. The most common example of this is everyday greeting, when the response to "how are you" is often "fine, thanks (and also I'm mentally expiring)". Another is the Paul McCartney song "Wonderful Christmas Time". On paper the song's lyrics read like an idealised version of the festive season. In reality however it can be the ironic backdrop to countless family arguments, looping on and on in the background as a strange form of torture â clenched smiles and barely-touching hugs rendered immortally in one demented piece of music. RyanThis is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most renowned and beloved songs in the Christmas canon. It has been covered no less than 72 times since Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith first wrote it in 1934, while the words âWinter Wonderlandâ have now become synonymous with ferris wheels, pop-up faux Bavarian taverns and dads falling over on ice. Thereâs something rather delirious about âWinter Wonderlandâ â those swaying strings and peppy little brass toots â which feels uplifting when Frank Sinatra is crooning it, but takes on a more mournful tone when you consider the fact that Smith penned the lyrics after seeing Honesdale Central Park covered in snow from the window of West Mountain Sanitarium where he was being treated for tuberculosis. With that knowledge, the whole song becomes one of sadness and longing. âSleigh bells ring / Are you listening / In the lane / Snow is glistening / A beautiful sight / We're happy tonight / Walking in a winter wonderland,â he writes before dying of the illness a year later. âGone away, is the blue bird / Here to stay, is the new bird / He sings a love song / As we go along / Walking in a winter wonderland.â
Paul McCartney â âWonderful Christmas Timeâ
Frank Sinatra â âWinter Wonderlandâ
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Still slaps though, doesnât it. Who wants a mulled wine? EmmaThis is your dadâs go to for Christmas Eve Karaoke down the Lionâs Head or the Nagâs Arse or whatever your dire hometown pub is called. Itâs 10:36 PM on the 24th and Brianâs half cut wearing a Santa hat ft. flashing LEDs, but for a few glorious moments, when he takes up the mic and stands in front of that re-purposed portable telly, he is the King. He is Elvis. But he is also a dad.Crooning âLonely This Christmasâ to an adoring (wankered) audience is probably the best part of your dadâs year, but has he thought about the fact that Elvis actually wrote this song to #raiseawareness about the fact that there are almost one million people in the UK who will spend this Christmas alone?? No. No he fucking hasnât. Itâs not all fun and games here, Brian. LaurenMake no mistake: this is one thousand percent a song about shagging. The theme of winter is merely incidental to the central plot which is basically your ex-bf trying to coax you out of all your social engagements in favour of staying in and getting piped. Nothing too dark that, I suppose, but certainly something to think about while your nan is eating mash and humming along to her fav. EmmaLet's be honest, "Jingle Bells" is a song about drag racing and being pissed To quote a CBC headline from 2014, âstarted as a drinking song written by a 'jerk'â. One of the most popular events in mid-19th century Medford, Massachusetts, was a series of sleigh races wherein everyone would bomb it down one street for⊠fun, I guess? Anyway, a deadbeat called James Pierpoint took inspiration from these 1850s high speed drag races to write âJingle Bellsâ in a pub. Apparently Pierpoint was a bit of a shit who kept leaving his wife with his father while he fucked off across the country chasing gold, abandoned their kids when she died and didnât even bother to return for her funeral. Emma
Elvis Presley â âLonely This Christmasâ
Dean Martin â âLet it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!â
âJingle Bellsâ
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Björk â âJĂłlakötturinn (The Christmas Cat)â
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