Christmas My Way: Bad Tidings

I’ve already said that I love Christmas Music. Yeah, I really do. And of course, I even love the bad ideas and silly recordings, the ones that will make you wish for coal in my stocking. So, here are some truly silly Christmas songs. Try not to sing along:

First up, ELTON JOHN recorded a Christmas single in the 70’s called STEP INTO CHRISTMAS which has become traditional despite being just an OK recording. However, true Christmas cheer can be found on the flipside, a little ditty that sounds like it was recorded on the fly after a very long night of drinking. It’s called HO-HO-HO (WHO’D BE A TURKEY AT CHRISTMAS)

BEN FOLDS is one of my favorite musicians and he has a sometimes very unique and slightly skewed music style. He showed that in this song called BIZARRE CHRISTMAS INCIDENT.

Be warned. This has some language and is NSFW (Not Safe For Work).

Here you go.

Now, it would be too easy to attack the JINGLE DOGS and the JINGLE CATS. No one really expected quality music out of them. What you may not realize it that way back in the 70’s, it had already been done by an assemblage known as the SINGING DOGS.

From the world of Saturday Night Live comes this odd version of SILVER BELLS sung by Paul Simon, spoken word by Steve Martin, and reportedly Billy Joel on Piano.

The Sixties had a minor run of “Drop-in” records, which were comedy records that consisted of situations and questions that were answered by brief segments of popular records. SANTA AND THE SATELLITE was done by the king of these recordings, BUCHANAN AND GOODMAN

THE BEATLES used to release a recording just to their fan club members each holiday from 1963-1969. They started out as just fun banter sitting around a microphone into elaborate Monty Python style recordings. This is their 1967 recording, with the song CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE AGAIN.

Beatles sound-alikes THE RUBBER BAND (also known as THE BEATMAS) recorded Christmas songs in the Beatles style. Here is the Taxman-influenced RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER.

There. I made it through without pure treacle like THE CHRISTMAS SHOES and GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER.

However, I want to leave you with one of my favorite Christmas novelty records, by the great satirist STAN FREBERG: “Christmas Dragnet”