Now that we have once again reached the season of Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men™, let us take a step back from the current craziness of this country and this world and consider the thing that really matters. I am talking, as you have most certainly already guessed, about my undying hatred for the song Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney.
I have despised that song since the first time I heard it. Something in the combination of the bouncy synthesizer, the cheesy children's choir followed by that weird banjo-like effect and the absolutely inane lyrics sets my teeth on edge. But I think the main thing that provokes a barely controllable, visceral response in me, equal parts rage and disgust, is that the whole thing sounds like it was written and recorded in about fifteen minutes. This is, after all, the guy who wrote Yesterday, and Blackbird, and Eleanor Rigby, and any number of other timeless pieces of music. He also wrote what, for my money, are some real clunkers, like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, but none of those comes even close to this piece of appallingly insipid commercial trash.
It's not that I have something against Christmas music as such. I can't say I really like it, mind you; as a Hebrew-American, it doesn't really mean all that much to me (even though so many of the season's most iconic songs were written by members of my own tribe). I do feel a sense of relief when December 26 rolls around and I know it will be the better part of a year before I am once again assaulted in some supermarket by yet another version of Frosty the Snowman or Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, but I'm sure I'm hardly alone in that.
I'm trying to remember when I first became aware of Christmas music. As alluded to already, Christmas in general wasn't "a thing" in our household. I have vague memories of asking my mother what this Santa Claus business was about and having it explained to me that it was basically an amusing hoax perpetrated on most of my friends by their parents, but now that I was in on the secret, I must guard that secret like the nuclear codes.
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| You're not fooling anyone. |
I think my first direct introduction to the actual music came at the school where I started first grade. In those days, i.e., the mid-1960s, I and the other kids would walk to school (yes, walk, by ourselves or with a neighbor kid or two; I just looked on Google Maps and saw that it was about 0.8 miles from my house) and then run around on the playground until a bell rang that signaled that we were to get to our respective classrooms. In the week or so leading up to Christmas vacation (not, I will emphasize, "winter vacation"—this was not the California of today), when the weather was cold and rainy anyway, they would herd us into the "multi-purpose room", the combined auditorium and lunchroom.
There we would sing Christmas carols. The lyrics were projected on a wall using an overhead projector, one of the holy trinity of devices that made up the non plus ultra of 1960s American classroom technology, the others being the Ditto machine and the filmstrip projector.
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| I can still smell it. |
Having no context for these songs, especially as a seven-year old, I found them pretty baffling. This was partly for religious/cultural reasons: one that really confused me was The First Noel, with the line, "born is the king of Israel". I was sort of aware that there was a country full of people like me called Israel, but I wasn't aware that it had a king, and when did this happen, exactly? Others were somewhat mysterious for more geographical/meteorological reasons; we didn't see a lot of snowmen or horse-drawn sleighs in California's East Bay Area.
Anyway, I guess this would go on for around 15–20 minutes each morning at this time of year until they sent us to our classrooms. I remember when my father found out about this activity and was absolutely furious about this religious indoctrination and clear violation of the separation of church and state, but I don't think he ever registered his complaint with the relevant authorities.
So, what were we talking about? Ah, yes, Wonderful Christmastime. Occasionally the season passes without me coming across it even once—that's my own personal Christmas miracle, if ever there was one. Last year I made it all the way to December 23rd when, sitting in an airport waiting to board a plane to visit the Heiress, I realized that I was listening to a Muzak version of the thing. This year, just yesterday in fact, I was at Walgreen's to pick up one of the increasing number of prescriptions my doctor has put me on now that I have reached the age of Old Fartdom, when a sort of jazzified version of the song came on the store's PA system.
These latter two incidents pose a sort of philosophical/moral dilemma. Neither of those cover versions of the song were what I would consider good music, but at least they lacked the most grating features of McCartney's original recording. Purist that I am, though, I'm going to say that Paul won these last two rounds. Just wait until next season.
I did not become aware of McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" until I worked as a vendor at Home Depot between the years 2006 and 2009. During the Christmas season, that song was one of the many secular ditties played over the store's speakers. I hated it with a passion, but I didn't find out until much later that McCartney was responsible. I generally like his music, so it was something of a shock to find out that he created that absolute garbage.
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