Wonderful Christmastime
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This cracked me up!
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Nancy R wrote:
This cracked me up!
I know it is not exactly a classic Christmas song but surprised it shows up constantly on list of the worst Christmas songs ever.
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Yankeefan2 wrote:
I know it is not exactly a classic Christmas song but surprised it shows up constantly on list of the worst Christmas songs ever.
Well it is 40 years old this year, so it's become a classic!
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thenightfish wrote:
Yankeefan2 wrote:
I know it is not exactly a classic Christmas song but surprised it shows up constantly on list of the worst Christmas songs ever.
Well it is 40 years old this year, so it's become a classic!
I don't know why it's so disliked by some! I love it!
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Every year it constantly receives airplay here in the UK ......only the other day I heard it three times on the radio.
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Nancy R, I was just going to post that meme
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and I've lived through it more then once myself
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Kathryn O wrote:
Nancy R, I was just going to post that meme
Welcome back, stranger!
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It's Kathryn O, it's good to see you again!
NancyR where did the meme go?
I'm assuming this thread is about Wonderful Christmas Time? That is one of my Christmas favs...I love the lyrics and the bells especially! Bought some bells myself because of that song...
I hear it a lot in stores...
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Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
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love2travel wrote:
It's Kathryn O, it's good to see you again!
NancyR where did the meme go?
I'm assuming this thread is about Wonderful Christmas Time? That is one of my Christmas favs...I love the lyrics and the bells especially! Bought some bells myself because of that song...
I hear it a lot in stores...
It was there a second ago and now it's not! Photobucket freaked out today and you couldn't see any of my pics, plus I couldn't even get on the site. Still can't. Hopefully pics will return soon.
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Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
We should all be able to write a song like that on "autopilot!" If I had a gun to my head I couldn't come up with as good of a Christmas song! Agree to disagree.
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Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
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Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
You should write his lyrics - lol. You are right, that change would make sense. Once again, it shows McCartney really needs strong voice to tell him to do better.
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Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
Regarding "Wonderful Christmas", I'm sort of the middle between Nancy and many people who dislike "Wonderful Christmas". When I hear it in a mall or store, I think the overall music (and bells) during the Christmas season sound quite nice. I don't think that Paul's song is one of the best Christmas songs in the modern era but it's certainly not horrible and one of the worsts to my ears. The bridge/hook in the middle "the choir of children sing their song"... is a little too predictable to my ears and not close to one of Paul's classic bridges. Also, the overall lyrics are too bland for my taste. Not bad but not great either in my opinion. On the other side, it is still a good song when you are measuring against normal artists. Sometimes when you are talking about Paul McCartney, the yardstick is set so high that we expect more. Unfortunately for Paul, many expect a Macca Christmas song to reach the Yesterday, Hey Jude or Here There and Everywhere level. For that reason, I think Wonderful Christmas is still a good song. I think the Radio Programmers prove that point with all the airplay WC revceives. Success breeds discontent hence so many of the "worse Christmas song remarks.
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Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
Kestrel, I just wrote a previous post on WC that relates to what you are saying. I do think that "bright" might have been a better word than "right" but I don't have a problem with "right". There are so many meanings for the word "right" that when you look at the broader definition of right, it still works...just my opinion. My little problem with WC is what I said in the previous post...the bridge/middle part is too predictable ("the choir of children sing their song" part) and that the lyrics overall are a little bland. But like Nancy and a couple others, I like the music as a whole when I hear it at a Mall or store. Not deserving of making worse Christmas song lists by any measure in my opinion.
I'm one that has to disagree on Ebony and Ivory. I don't believe it is one of Paul's best songs by any measure, but E&I doesn't bother me either. To me, the problem with E&I is mainly that it got way overplayed by radio (it was #! for a few weeks) and many people (including me!) got tired of it. I understand the complaints when it was heard constantly on the radio but when I hear it today (long after the album's release) I like the song. The lyrics aren't great and a little too repetitive but the overall sentiment is good and still very relevant today. E&I didn't bother me with the overall brillance of Tug of War because Paul put it as the last song of the album and it was less than 4 minutes in length. As I have mentioned on this board before, I loved the Tug of War album, but the problem I had with Tug was not E&I but with the other Paul/Stevie Wonder song..."What's That Your Doing". For me, this song seemed to be much more of a Stevie song than Paul's and didn't fit with the rest of the songs on the album in my opinion. Worse yet, it was more of a "jam" song that went on and on for well over 6 minutes. It was the only song on E&I that I regularly skipped. I absolutely loved the 1st 3 songs (Tug of War, Take It Away and the severely underrated Somebody Who Cares) and then "What's That Your Doing" just took the momentum away from the brilliant start of the album. Thankfully the rest of Tug after that one song flowed very well. Just my opinion. I'm sure there are many people who liked "What's That Your Doing" (and I'm a Stevie fan) but that song and especiallly on Tug of War didn't do it for me.
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Nancy R wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
We should all be able to write a song like that on "autopilot!" If I had a gun to my head I couldn't come up with as good of a Christmas song! Agree to disagree.
NancyR if you had a gun to your head... which is a strange thought... but I'm sure you could come up with something even if it was one of those many Christmas song's that repeat a lot !!
When Ebony and Ivory came out, I remember being happy that Paul was doing his bit to address the struggles of Racial inequalities in 1982. That made the song even better!
Stevie Wonder has such a signature funk, over all of his song's and harmonica too. Really love that about his music! Happy to hear the bounce at any time.
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love2travel wrote:
Nancy R wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
We should all be able to write a song like that on "autopilot!" If I had a gun to my head I couldn't come up with as good of a Christmas song! Agree to disagree.
NancyR if you had a gun to your head... which is a strange thought... but I'm sure you could come up with something even if it was one of those many Christmas song's that repeat a lot !!
Haven't you ever heard that expression before? Seriously, there are some things that I absolutely couldn't do if my life depended on it - write a song or draw a picture! Paul and John can/could do both which is amazing!
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love2travel wrote:
Nancy R wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
We should all be able to write a song like that on "autopilot!" If I had a gun to my head I couldn't come up with as good of a Christmas song! Agree to disagree.
NancyR if you had a gun to your head... which is a strange thought... but I'm sure you could come up with something even if it was one of those many Christmas song's that repeat a lot !!
When Ebony and Ivory came out, I remember being happy that Paul was doing his bit to address the struggles of Racial inequalities in 1982. That made the song even better!
Stevie Wonder has such a signature funk, over all of his song's and harmonica too. Really love that about his music! Happy to hear the bounce at any time.
Speaking of Stevie Wonder's harmonica, I have become a big fan of Paul's song "Only Our Hearts"on the "Kisses" album. Love Paul's vocal and Stevie's harmonica solo in the middle is fantastic.
Just to emphasize, it's not that I hate "What's That You're Doing" on Tug of War. It's not a terrible song and it does have some of Stevie's funk, but I never thought it fit well with so many great introspective Paul songs on Tug and it went on way too long in my opinion (over 6 minutes).
Getting back to Wonderful Christmas, I always thought that the bridge "The choir of children sing their song" was a bit clunky. I had said prredictable but I think clunky is a better description of my slight criticism. Again, I think it is a good Christmas song.
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B J Conlee wrote:
Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
Regarding "Wonderful Christmas", I'm sort of the middle between Nancy and many people who dislike "Wonderful Christmas". When I hear it in a mall or store, I think the overall music (and bells) during the Christmas season sound quite nice. I don't think that Paul's song is one of the best Christmas songs in the modern era but it's certainly not horrible and one of the worsts to my ears. The bridge/hook in the middle "the choir of children sing their song"... is a little too predictable to my ears and not close to one of Paul's classic bridges. Also, the overall lyrics are too bland for my taste. Not bad but not great either in my opinion. On the other side, it is still a good song when you are measuring against normal artists. Sometimes when you are talking about Paul McCartney, the yardstick is set so high that we expect more. Unfortunately for Paul, many expect a Macca Christmas song to reach the Yesterday, Hey Jude or Here There and Everywhere level. For that reason, I think Wonderful Christmas is still a good song. I think the Radio Programmers prove that point with all the airplay WC revceives. Success breeds discontent hence so many of the "worse Christmas song remarks.
I never took "Wonderful Christmastime" as anything but a fun upbeat song about Christmas. I kind of agree that McCartney seemed to be going thru the motions and wanted to release a Christmas song that would be played on the radio. It is ok and I have heard worse. Every hear Springsteen singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", it is awful. Anyway, Merry Christmas BJ and I hope you have a wonderful 2020 !!
