Christmas songs that should be banned.
It only took a year or two for Millennials and Gen Z to ruthlessly and efficiently use the power of their social media platforms to shape a more politically corrent, pronoun precise world, forcing Boomers and Gen X to confront past cultural missteps. True, hindsight does make you wonder how some writers got away with what they did but might our socially conscious white knights sometimes take their pious campaigns a bit too far?
For example, was it really necessary for a time-honoured Christmas favourite to come under such exhaustive scrutiny to leave it banned from radio stations around the world?
“Baby, It's Cold Outside” was written by Frank Loesser in 1944 and has been recorded many times since: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews, Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton, James Taylor and Natalie Cole duet on some of the most notable versions.
Until recently the song was seen as flirty and playful. A fellow smitten by his female companion tries to convince her not to go home. Using the bad weather as his primary means of persuasion in no way disguises the real reason he wants her to stay. Maybe she’s open to his advances, maybe not, but in any of the versions you’ve heard, does it really sound as if she’s being coerced into doing something against her will?
Close examination of the lyrics suggests she might be. In particular the line “Say, what's in this drink?”, leads to a more sinister interpretation. Now sleazy old Rod is planning to knock Dolly out and have his way with her.
Is that what Frank Loesser was thinking when he wrote the song? Is that even the point anymore? Has the world gone mad? Actually, no. Baby It’s Cold Outside is by no means an exception. When you think about it, a whole host of our beloved Christmas classics should follow it onto the banned list. Cheap lousy faggots be gone.
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Indulge me for a minute. Open Google Images and copy in the title:
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
What do you see in almost every image of our favourite flying caribou?
Antlers.
I admit to my own ignorance when it comes to the reindeer species. I only recently learned that males shed their antlers in early December, after the mating season. Females do not. They keep their antlers until they’ve given birth in the spring. This Discovery Channel nugget opens our eyes to the truth: Santa’s reindeers are female. All of them.
Despite the likelihood of a few early pregnancies I have no problem with that, assuming fair labour practices are observed among Lapland’s animal workforce. What I do take issue with is the blatant inaccuracy in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer where it’s stated that “all the reindeer loved him.”
You might argue that since Rudolph has stayed silent on the matter, we don’t know whether or not this unfortunate misgendering causes them any ongoing distress so we shouldn’t make assumptions, but you’d be missing the point. Such a shocking pronoun misuse is surely reason enough to ban the song until clear evidence of how Rudolph describes themself has emerged.
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
The problematic line in this children’s favourite is: “He sees you when you're sleeping.”
To my mind, many questions that begin with the words How does Santa...?, have never been satisfactorily addressed. I’ve long intended to mount a full investigation into some of his so-called magical activities but until then (and let’s face it I’ve been putting this off for 40 odd years) I’m prepared to accept the generic because he’s magic explanation for most of the implausible things he’s capable of. However, I would really like to know how he sees me when I’m sleeping.
Is he literally in my bedroom watching me, in which case we’re all merrily singing about someone who isn’t a family member or close friend, standing over our beds and checking us out while we're asleep? It doesn’t get any creepier than that regardless of his credentials which, as far as I’m concerned, only allow him access to the chimney, the fireplace and the most direct route to wherever I’ve put my tree.
Or is it a little less personal and his magical powers extend to a magical CCTV system, enabling him to see into anyone’s bedroom at any time? Seemingly without permission.
Either way the lyric “He sees you when you're sleeping” demonstrates a flagrant violation of our basic privacy laws, outrageous enough that I call for Santa Claus Is Coming To Town to be banned outright.
Santa Baby
This is a song about a spoiled rich bitch flirting with Santa in order to get expensive shit for Christmas. I say flirting but that’s the most diluted interpretation. We’ve already seen that something playful and flirty to one person is sexual exploitation to another. The protagonist may well be hinting that she’s willing to provide a jolly old man with whatever sexual favours he desires in return for jewellery. It’s an inexplicable affront to a Christian celebration. Except for the Kylie version where just the right cocktail of flirtatious innocence means she pulls it off. The song I mean.
All I Want For Christmas Is You
It’s tempting to ban All I Want For Christmas for no other reason than we’re all sick of it but I’m aiming to demonstrate solid arguments for why I believe firm favourites no longer deserve their place on a family playlist, a recycled Best Christmas Hits Ever CD or any daytime radio show - arguments that will be taken seriously when think tanks are formed to debate the issue.
Mariah has usurped Mrs. Claus to become the Queen Of Christmas, that is if she hasn't in fact been Mrs. Claus herself all along. Her seasonal masterpiece appears unimpeachable today but you can never rule out a melodramatic Gen Alpha taking to TikTok, picking the song apart and exposing a cleverly hidden lyrical travesty.
The problem with this song lies in its cover versions. Michael Bublé, Justin Bieber, the cast of Glee... this is a worrying downward trend that needs to be stopped. Banning the song completely is, I admit, a bit excessive but if that’s what it takes it must be done.
Do They Know It’s Christmas?
“How patronising can you get?” object the Ethiopians, who live in a country where Christianity was established in the 4th century and can therefore be presumed to be well aware of Christmas. “Well, it’s just a pop song”, responds Sir Bob, “one that needn’t have been written if governments had done their job.”
Despite its wince-inducing lyrics the song endures and continues to raise money for the Band Aid Charitable Trust, which is still working to eradicate hunger and poverty more than 40 years after the famine that galvanized the cream of UK 80s pop in the first place.
Patronising it may be according to African luminaries who look the picture of health when they’ve answered the annual invitation to give their opinion on the news, but I’d like to know what frontline aid workers in countries still blighted by poverty, hunger and corrupt governments, who witness directly how funds generated by the song are used, also think of it.
A lack of female singers on the original version was a sore point addressed a few years later by Band Aid II but there’s no need to ban that one. It’s so genuinely awful that no one ever plays it.