It's that time of year again. Christmas carols in all the malls, on the radio, on telephone hold music. And it's always the most insipid ones that seem to get the most play.

Like Do You Hear What I Hear? The saccharine melody, the stilted lyrics... Nothing against Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne¹, but the carols of the 1960s just don't hold a candle to those from earlier times.

Or The Little Drummer Boy. My beef against this one is quite specific: I sang bass in high school. For a bass, this song is worse than Pachelbel's Canon in D is to a cellist: the entire song is "Pum... pum pum pum... pum pum pum..." on the same two notes all the way through. Also, the "Rum-pa-pum-pum" in the melody always makes me think of the phrase "rumpy-pumpy". Not that that has anything to do with me hating it, I just thought I'd mention it while I was on the subject.

I think my least favorite has to be I Saw Three Ships, the Christmas equivalent of There Were Three Ravens, which is so boring that it's almost never performed in its original form, to wit:

Repeat this phrase ad nauseam, down a down, hey down hey down,
Repeat this phrase ad nauseam, with a down,
Repeat this phrase ad nauseam,
Then one more phrase that's not the same,²
With a down, derry derry derry derry down down.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of carols I do enjoy. In fact, some of them have actually moved out of the Hate column. I used to find Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen boring, for example, but as my tastes matured I was able to appreciate how beautiful it can be. I've always liked God rest ye merry, Gentlemen, which manages to be surprisingly cheerful for a tune in a minor key.

Silent Night I'm kind of ambivalent on, but I do like the story about the Germans and the English sharing a moment of fellowship across the trenches as they sang it in their respective tongues before going back to killing each other the next day. Somehow I doubt things would have gone so well had the Tommies sung the Dreidle Song instead.³

1. Great names for composers of Christmas songs, though.

2. Yes, that rhymes. Or at least it did back when There Were Three Ravens was on the charts.

3. Yeah, I know that was World War I. That was a joke, son.