It’s Time For Some New Christmas Songs

Jesse | Published on Dec 8, 2009

Now I love the Holidays as much as the next guy but can we all please agree that a serious overhaul is needed in the Christmas song industry.  I’m pushing fifty years old this yuletide season and I’ve heard most of these tunes enough to last me another fifty.

My guess is I’m subjected to Walking in a Winter Wonderland twice daily between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.  So if my collective memory began when I was about five, I’ve heard that song more than 2000 times.  I think that probably warrants a break for a few years.  And then there’s that Partridge in a Pear Tree that comes up a dozen times in each rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas.  So according to my estimates I’ve heard that lyric more than 10,000 times.  Enough about that damn bird.

I dare not attempt to calculate the number of Pa Rum Pum Pum Pums.

I could go into all the others but I think you get the point.  We need an infusion of new Holiday songs and we need them yesterday.  And I’m not talking recycling old songs with new artists, that’s a cop out.  We don’t need to hear anything like Jay-Z singingHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, that won’t get us anywhere.

When I was a kid Jingle Bell Rock and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree shook up the old guard a little bit. Those tunes were considered new blood up until about the Nixon administration.

Then in the 80’s we were treated what is now commonly considered the most hated Christmas song ever, the infamous Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.  We’re still paying the price for the one time we laughed at that one.

Since then we’ve had George Michael’s Last Christmas I Gave you my Heart, Wilson Phillips Hey Santa and Madonna’s Santa Baby.  All chick tunes so no further comment.

And that’s about it.  Four new songs in fifty years (I’m counting Grandma Got Run Over as a negative here) so in my opinion we deserve better.  Here are some themes to consider, I’ll leave the musical arrangements to others:

How about a song finally paying tribute to those other Reindeer.  After all, they did pull 8/9 of Santa’s sleigh that foggy Christmas Eve.

Or perhaps one recognizing those in the south or far west who never did have aWhite Christmas.  Enough dreaming at this point, its flat out delusional by now.

Maybe a Christmas song dedicated to safety with the opening verse beginning “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but don’t try this one home alone.”

I’d also like to throw out the notion of a rebuttal song clarifying the whole I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus thing.  Talk about creeping out kids at the wrong time of the year.  Perhaps lyrics here could include “I never saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, I just told that story to get attention.”

Of course these are all just suggestions.  At this point I think we’d welcome any new songs with open antlers.

How about we all make a New Year’s resolution to come up with one new song by next Holiday season.  That should cover us for a while.  Feel free to think outside the pear tree and keep Grandma out of it.

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