I love Christmas music as much as the next person. It puts me in the holiday spirit and livens the cold days as Christmas approaches, but these songs take silly Christmas music to the next level, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing.
Christmas music should be humorous and playful, but sometimes creativity takes over, and it is only sometimes for the best. Here are three songs that have me questioning who said they were worth producing.
“Dominick the Donkey (the Italian Christmas Donkey)”
By Lou Monte
I didn’t expect much when this song first graced my ears, given the title, but I was still amazed.
“Dominick the Donkey (the Italian Christmas Donkey)” by Lou Monte is about a donkey named Dominic, who is a friend of Santas and helps deliver presents when the reindeer can’t endure the icy winter conditions.
First of all, I would like to point out that lyrically, this song doesn’t even rhyme. Which would ordinarily be fine as long as the music composition accounts for that, but Monte didn’t really take that into consideration. For example, he rhymes “Josephine” with “Brooklyn” pronounced (brooke-A-lean). That should have been the first sign to producers that this was not a song that needed to be published.
It is an odd concept for a song, and I wondered how someone could have created this random song. After further research, I learned that there is such a thing as a Christmas donkey in Italy that helps St. Lucy delivers presents to good children and coal to bad children on December 13th.
This said, I understand the concept, but the song did not do a good job of explaining the tradition. Instead, Dominick helps Santa when his magical reindeer can not. I think the song would have been better if it was about St. Lucy’s journey delivering gifts to the children of Italy.
The last thing I want to mention about this song is the obnoxious backtrack sounds of a donkey braying, which doesn’t add anything to its likability.
“Grandpa’s Gonna Sue the Pants Off of Santa”
By Dr. Elmo
“Grandpa’s Gonna Sue the Pants Off of Santa” yb Dr. Elmo is a spin-off to the well-known song “Grandma got Runover by a Reindeer”. In the song, the husband of the woman run over by reindeer is pursuing legal actions against Santa for being so reckless as to kill his beloved wife.
The song details the court proceedings, framing Rudolph as the main culprit and suing Santa for millions of dollars.
I know Grandpa is grieving the loss of his wife, but suing Santa would take away Christmas for millions of children, including his grandchildren. Imagine the heartache when they find out their grandfather was the one responsible for ruining Christmas and killing the Christmas spirit. Also, Santa makes and delivers presents to all the children out of the goodness of his heart. Considering how philanthropic he is, suing him for more money than he has is a bit unfair.
Furthermore, painting Santa as a criminal takes away the element of magic and imagination of Christmas. It also does nothing to amplify the Christmas spirit, which is the point of Christmas music.
“You ain’t getting diddly squat”
By: Heywood Banks
Talk about doing nothing for the Christmas spirit. “You ain’t getting diddly squat” by Heywood Banks does just that. From the title alone, it is evident that a Scrooge wrote this song.
The song—sung in the second person—speaks directly to the listener. It calls the listener out for being guilty of bad behavior this year, so they are not getting any gifts from Santa.
As I previously stated, Christmas music is supposed to be uplifting and lighthearted, but this song is a threat to get children to behave.
The song’s direct audience is children; the singer starts by saying “Hey kids gather around Heywoods got a song for you”. As a kid you don’t mess around about Santa, and hearing that you are on the naughty list can cause severe emotional distress.
For kids who are deeply immersed in the magic of Christmas, hearing this song would greatly frighten them and cause anxiety.
Targeting childhood fears is about the only thing this song does because Haywood isn’t actually singing the lyrics. It sounds like he is just speaking to them with background music and vocals.
It’s not just these songs, so many other songwriters have taken generous creative freedoms to produce songs like; “Too Fat for the Chimney”, “A Howdy Doody Christmas”, “It’s a Marshmallow World” and “Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo”.
You can call me a Grinch if you want, but these songs are not adding any holiday cheer to the season. Sometimes not all ideas need to be carried out, even in the spirit of the holidays. Tis’ the season to turn on the classics–”Last Christmas”, “Jingle Bells”, “Deck the Halls”–don’t go looking for new Christmas music because you might not like what you find…
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