In defense of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”
December 1 signals one of the cheeriest times of year for holiday music fans. Radio stations and retail stores flip their playlists to all-seasonal tunes, which increases the odds of hearing “Christmas Wrapping” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in the wild. Putting together playlists of nothing but versions of “Last Christmas” becomes a perfectly viable time-waster. Not every holiday song is a winner — for example, the modern critiques of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” are long overdue — and those who despise seasonal music are in for a long few weeks. However, festive cheer more often than not beats out Grinch-like grumbling.
The exception? Paul McCartney’s 1979 solo single, “Wonderful Christmastime,” which has been a critical lightning rod for decades. Based around an oscillating synth melody that lands somewhere between sinewy funk and space-age ’70s rock, the song piles on sleigh bells, a slightly ragged-sounding McCartney vocal delivery, and very little lyrical substance. That last bit in particular has always rankled the song’s haters. In fact, although the Beatles are generally beloved, critics have been known to tear into “Wonderful Christmastime.”
College Humor recorded a video outlining in great detail “Why ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ Is the Worst Song Ever,” while Ultimate Classic Rock was not asking a rhetorical question in its article “Does Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ Suck?” Writer Matt Springer called the song an “abysmal seasonal horror” that was (among other negative things) “lazy, passionless and trite.” A 2014 USA Today article also lambastes the song’s lyrics, and compares McCartney to “the writer of an Adam Sandler movie — he can’t think of anything better, so he has all the guys just make fun of Kevin James the whole time.” Jezebel, meanwhile, once wrote that the song “sounds like how it feels to be over-caffeinated and light-headed in the middle of a Macy’s Black Friday sale after being awake for 24 hours.”
By: Annie Zaleski
Source: Salon
