Yeah, this one’s about lousy Christmas songs. But I have to set it up, first.
Tim Layden, one of the fine writers from the old Gazette’s days past, began an excellent, quirky tradition during that era now faded but not yet forgotten.
These were the days when the newspaper was based on State Street, across from the Imperial clothing store and Harry Leva’s news room. It was the early 1980s, and most of us worked the afternoon-into-evening shift. News reporters punched out at 11 p.m.; sports guys had to stick around another hour. We discussed stories and games in the bar right next door to the paper — how convenient — the Press Box.
It was generally beers ahoy for a while. The tavern’s television set and jukebox were always on, David Letterman on the former and Sheena Easton on the latter.
The tradition started with Sheena. The pop singer was a hot number during the ’80s, but one of her big sellers was the truly awful “Morning Train.” We all hated it, from the brassy opening to breathy lines like “My baby takes the morning train, he works from nine till five and then, he takes another home again ... to find me waitin’ for him.” Excuse me, I have to throw up.
It was a lousy return for a 25-cent investment, and we all griped when Sheena interrupted our sipping sessions with F.X. Matt. Layden, who has since made his bones on the national scene with Sports Illustrated, proposed it wasn’t enough to complain about distaste and discomfort felt when Sheena and the love train rambled in. To truly register our annoyance, we would have to boycott the song!
And that’s what we did. Tim, myself, Bill Buell and young Joe Layden would leave our beers at the bar, walk out of the joint and stand around the iron railings bolted into the high sidewalk next to State Street. Boycott! On strike! After three minutes, with Sheena tucked safely back inside the machine’s stack of records, we resumed our duties at tap and tab.
Layden was bullish about the boycott. If Sheena started screeching about the “train” while we were in our cars, it was not enough to switch the station — the proper response was to pull over to the side of the road, get out, and wait three minutes until the all-clear.
I never stopped my car over a song, but I sure have been thinking about it this month. I’ve got a short list of Christmas songs that I detest, and it seems like I hear them ALL ... THE ...TIME. They’re on in the newspaper’s morgue when I’m researching a history story; they’re on in my favorite Price Chopper supermarket; they’re on at home, when I’m tuned into one of the all-holiday radio stations.
Here’s my list:
ANNOYING: I know the message is a good one, but I cannot abide the schmaltzy sentiment of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” the all-star Band Aid’s offering from the early 1980s. Yeah, I feel bad about needy people this time of year, and I try to do my share. Certainly, 1980s rock stars ... like Band Aid participants Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Human League and Spandau Ballet ... and people slam the ’70s’ bands ... could have written big checks to help out. And maybe spared us December after December of this crummy melody.
MORE ANNOYING: “The Christmas Shoes.” NewSong’s 2000 newcomer to the sappy and syrupy holiday songs, I find this more depressing than uplifting. Guy shopping in a store, poor little kid’s mother is dying, kid needs money to get the poor woman some new shoes because she’s going to meet Jesus on Christmas Eve. What a great idea for a story! If and when God destroys the world, I’ll bet this song is the first reason — maybe the only reason — He gives for the destruction.
EVEN MORE ANNOYING: “Last Christmas, I Gave You My Heart.” Boy, does this leave a bad taste in my ears. Never liked those dopes from “WHAM!” when they were headliners during the 1980s, and this George Michael song gives them a seasonal encore from well-deserved current irrelevance. Oh, those lyrics ... “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, the very next day, you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special.” Ugh. Be a man, George. I had a high school girlfriend who broke up with me on the day after Thanksgiving, and I’ve forgotten about it. Well, mostly forgotten about it.
MOST ANNOYING: No contest. Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.” From the first, bouncy synthesizer notes to the “Boy, are we having fun” lyrics, this holiday “song” takes the fruitcake. Man, does this sound dated ... I’d rather stick needles in my ears, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in “Terms of Endearment.” I was never a fan of the Beatles, never owned a Beatles record or CD, and while I did like songs like “Back in the USSR” and “Penny Lane,” I would rather listen to Iron Butterfly, Grand Funk, Procul Harum, Blue Cheer and just for good measure, the Strawbs — all at once — before spinning a Beatles disc. John Lennon’s “Happy XMas (War is Over) is also vomitous, and I’d hate to be stringing popcorn when this downer is on. But no, when I’m alone in my cold house, sipping a Coors Light and staring at the bare light bulb on my living room ceiling, “Wonderful Christmastime” is the last song I want to hear. I have to scrape the sugar off my speakers after Sir Paul and his gang have caroled merrily off into the night. McCartney really should have quit after reaching his high-water mark — recording the theme for the great Roger Moore’s “Live and Let Die” James Bond movie in 1973.
The idiotic barking dogs “Jingle Bells” and Elmo and Patsy’s painful “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” would have been on this list, but I have not heard either this year. And I know some all-Christmas stations have refused to play these aural monstrosities, so there is some justice in the damn universe.
And while I may sound like an old cob with this list, I do like some of the “new” Christmas songs. “Believe” from “The Polar Express” is a kind of ethereal, melodious piece with nice lyrics. And I even kind of dig updated classics from Transiberian Orchestra and Mannheim Steamroller, although I think they’re both the same group.
Maybe it’s just age. I’ll bet my grandfather — the great Frank J. Kane was born in 1887 — probably heard Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” in 1957 and Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” in 1958 and said, “What is THIS trash?”
I can see Grandpa driving his Rambler to his nearby Wegman’s supermarket. When he hears about Brenda dancing around the evergreen “in the new, old-fashioned way,” he pulls over to the side of the road, steps out of the car and waits three minutes for Bing Crosby and “White Christmas.”
