Holiday Noise Pollution

I have had Elton John's "Step into Christmas" stuck in my head all night. I swear, I'm ready to stick forks in my brain to make it stop.

Tom has never heard of that song. Lucky bastard.

I don't know how it got in my head. Every store and many radio stations are playing Christmas music 24/7 but (because of that?) I have been avoiding both. We're talking the kind of avoiding where I wear my iPod at the supermarket rather than risk hearing "White Christmas." You know why?

It has taken me a lot of years to acknowledge and admit this but here goes:

I HATE CHRISTMAS MUSIC.

Okay, not all Christmas music. Blues Traveler has an awesome song called "Christmas" which I'd listen to year-round and Bruce rocks "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" like it's a real song but the rest of the Christmas choices? 99.5%* crap. Garbage. Aural poison.

I think I hit the nail on the head right there -- for a song to be good, it has to sound like a regular song, one you'd enjoy listening to any old time. With Bruce, he takes a kiddie carol and makes it sound like an actual hit from a rock station while the rest of the Christmas choices are cutesy ("Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", anyone?), schmaltzy (pretty much any of The Carpenters' holiday songs) or suicide-inducing (God in HEAVEN, that stinking song about the shoes for the kid's dying mother!) None of it sounds anything like what a rational person would enjoy on a random Wednesday in June.

Why do so many artists dumb themselves down with the Christmas songs? I mean, Elton gave us classics like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Tiny Dancer", for crying out loud. How could he sink so low? Then there's Paul McCartney who is in the Horrible Christmas Song Hall of Fame. For crying out loud, the man is a BEATLE and the best he can do is this??? Granted, I'm not a Beatles fan but I acknowledge that they are a huge part of rock n roll history even while maintaining my belief that they are way overrated.

Don't even talk to me about "Domenic the Donkey." I've heard of it but never heard it. If I die without ever hearing it, I die happy about that.

Soon, the season will be passed and I'll be a little sad about that. It will be nice for my ears to get in the car without worrying about being raped by the radio though.

The other 0.5%? U2's "(Christmas) Baby Please Come Home", "O Holy Night" sung by anyone with a really powerful voice (Tevin Campbell's version is my fave) and Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" and "Christmas Is". Oh, and anything that children are singing. Even the stupid Paul McCartney song.