Worst cover of a Christmas song

Silent Night by the Supremes. Terrible cover, terrible vocals. Also, the barking dog Jingle Bells is an ear splitter.

 

A literally half-bad cover of something you hear at Christmas would be the infamous version of 'Baby it's cold outside' with Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews.

 

I have no problem with this version, which sounds impeccably hip to me. The whole album stays in this vein, not treating the songs too reverently.

 

YMMV. I find nothing nothing "hip" about not bothering to learn a melody, especially one as ubiquitous as that tune was by the time Rawls recorded this.

And I love Lou Rawls, by the way.

 

He messes quite a bit with the melody, but I don't think that means he never learned it. He returns to the standard tune often enough for me, and I much prefer this take to the usual mournful interpretations.

 

Not sure which is more egregious - that he did not know the melody, or that he thought his reinvention was an improvement. Terrible either way, IMNSHO.

 

Winter Wonderland by Air Supply
Somehow over the last 4 or 5 years this has become a Christmas staple. I can't for the life of me figure out why. At best it is mediocre.

Virtually all versions of Baby It's Cold Outside
That song is awful. And everyone who sings it acts like it is so clever. It isn't.

 

I still think that BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE, is a very date rape sort of song. It makes me shudder the way some artists sing it . Creepy and yuck !

 

Even "amateur" performers on YouTube can play "Last Christmas" well IMHO.



Last Christmas - Wham - CHAINS acoustic cover

 

This. All this.

Mrs Pretzel refuses to entertain the song in the house, which is good because I absolutely hate it, misinterpreted intentions or no.

 

Whether or not a person likes the song musically is a matter of taste. But it most certainly is not a song about date rape, nor even about coercion. I'm not saying you guys are doing this, but I really hate it when something is taken out of its historical context and then deliberately misinterpreted with an eye towards making it seem offensive when it's really not.

The song is about a woman who wants to spend the night with a man, but is worried that if anyone finds out it will destroy her reputation. That concept may be difficult for modern listeners to understand, but it was a very real concern for women in the 1940s. It is clear from the lyrics that she wants to stay, and the guy is offering excuses she can use to rationalize the decision to others if she is "caught." Here's an article that parses the song more articulately than I can.

 

Your opinion, my opinion, and the author's opinion of that article. My point is that some singer's interpretation of the call and response lines of the song can be delivered and has been delivered in uncomfortable ways.

 

Certainly, it's possible to misinterpret the song and even perform it in a way that reinforces that misinterpretation. But that is true of hundreds of songs that have been written over the years. Take "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for example. How do we know that's not a song about sexual harassment? We know nothing about the relationship between the singer and the person to whom the song is directed. What if the desire to hold her hand is unwanted, and is part of of a pattern of persistent unwanted attention/comments? There's nothing in the song to preclude that interpretation, and a singer could perform it in a way that suggests it is the correct one. But it would be a misinterpretation of the songwriter's intent.

That's my point really, that misinterpretations based on a lack of historical perspective should not be given weight as valid interpretations. And it's unfair to dismiss a song simply because it can be subject to misinterpretation.

 

The one song I can think of that really is about sexual harrassment: "Take a Letter Maria." I hope Maria hauled the guy's ass to court.

 

Really ?!? Wow, you're right !

 

I think the desire implied in the lyric is for a lot more than hand holding, especially in the chorus.

 

At least she didn't sing it in her fake British accent.

 

I'm not a fan of the Jingle Dogs, The Singing Dogs, and Jingle Cats either.

 

I've always though Jingle Bells was kind of a lame song to begin with, but is just horrible. I guess she was trying being funny.
It's not.

 

Anything on Bob Dylan's Christmas record. You pick.

 

Regardless of that, there is nothing in the song to suggest it isn't unwanted desire. If they are already in a relationship, then why does he need to ask her to "let me be your man?" Yet if they are not in a relationship, then why has he already been touching her, to the point that it made him feel "happy inside"? And this is just one song I thought of off the top of my head. It's easy to make songs seem creepy with misinterpretation, but we shouldn't let such misinterpretation go unchallenged.

 

I like Bob Dylan's Christmas album, however how about an imitation of Bob Dylan doing "White Christmas" with a Bobby Kennedy imitator in the background?

 

I agree, in part. The released version, and hence the once that gets all the airplay, is pretty bad (that vibrato is absolutely cringe-inducing). On the other hand, there are some truly excellent versions on "unofficial" live recordings. I'm very partial to the Winterland version from December 15, 1978, and it has a great spoken intro.

 

Silent Night on the new Cheap Trick Xmas album is awful, too!