Southsea Tunes: Green Eggs and Ham, The Grinch I Am
At this time of year, festive music begins to become rife in the charts and in shops and this year is no different. So far this year, the likes of Justin Bieber and Michael Buble have already released their own Christmas albums and whilst I refuse to listen to them personally, I can imagine they will be filled with some truly tacky, seasonal tunes.
Festive music divides many people: for me, I love Christmas music right up until the second week of December, when I have heard The Pogues one too many times, The Waitresses are feeling over-played and even Frankie Goes to Hollywood can, well, GO to Hollywood, for all I care. Every November, it begins and the shops play these songs to death, suddenly it’s acceptable to be singing countless songs about fictional characters (if you’re under the age of 9, I am NOT talking about Father Christmas… ahem) and to spend money on albums which we knowingly will not listen to for 95% of the year. They are fun but by the time Christmas Day actually rolls around, I am far more interested in listening to something scary and shouty – something that is the absolute antithesis of Christmas.
Call me cynical if you like (many have and many undoubtedly will again) but Christmas songs are much like everything else at Christmas: excessive and brilliant until halfway through January when we’ve all re-awoken from our sugar comas, opened our credit card bills, and completely freaked out. What do we do to try and relax? We go to put on some music. What do we find? Michael Buble’s Christmas album! It’s like the morning after when we wake up and think ‘blimey, what happened last night?!’ Christmas is like the biggest, most expensive night out ever: and like on a night out, we buy Christmas albums (like we buy ‘meat’ kebabs) and think it’s a brilliant idea. We might even update our Facebook statuses about it.
I really feel as though Christmas music should be legally restricted. We should only be allowed to play them from December 10th – I would say the 1st but since this is all a fantastic fabrication of my mind, I’m going to push my luck. To me, Christmas music should be played in the pub on Christmas Eve and should be sung after several ciders. These people who come knocking on doors and singing these songs (sometimes, they don’t even sing the fun pop ones; no, sometimes they sing HYMNS) and then expect me to give them money for it too!
I suppose I’m coming across as a bit of a scrooge here and I suppose that really, I am a bit. I do enjoy Christmas – it’s nice to see my friends and family, I’m off work, it’s perfectly acceptable to eat an entire wheel of Brie and drink all the Bailey’s I fancy – what’s not to like? But I maintain this: Christmas songs masquerade as being odes to Christ and all the love his life brought but in truth, they are irritating and evil. I’m not even slightly ashamed of these views. Come 10th December though, I’ll be singing along with the best of them!
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