It drives me crazy when they play Jim Croce's "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way" at this time of year. The lyrics mention "crowded stores, the corner Santa Claus," to set the scene that it takes place in the winter. But otherwise, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas or the holidays. 

On the plus side, I suppose, is it gets played at all, because it was never a hit when it was released on his Life & Times LP - and in fact, was the B-side to "One Less Set Of Footsteps."

According to Wikipedia, "Greensleeves" is an English folk tune written in the 1500's. The original song actually had lyrics, which were interpreted by some to be about a promiscuous woman, possibly a prostitute (hence the "green sleeves" on her gown from rolling around in the grass).

The song was given a new set of lyrics in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix, and became the popular Christmas carol that we all know today, "What Child is This?"



PJ


 

 Northern Lights- Tears Are Not Enough and USA for Africa- We Are The World both get airplay this time of year.  Let It Snow,  Winter Wonderland, Wasn't That A Party and Eve Maria technically aren't Christmas specific but get lots of airplay right now.    

Where's the Chanukah music?

Joni Mitchell's River-to the point where when I hear it outside of the Christmas season it bothers me! Also, I forget which station it was-might've been the now defunct Star 102, but they played Michael Buble's "Home"-kind of a stretch eh?

I hate Christmas music, holiday-related or not.

While there is no mention of Christmas, these two songs seemed to have crossed over and can be heard in the UK during Christmas season:

Aled Jones - Walking in the air
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQt6NmOKzYw&pp=ygUdYWxlZCBqb25lcyB3YWxraW5nIGluIHRoZSBhaXI%3D

East 17 - Stay another day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNhdjoF-6M&pp=ygUYZWFzdCAxNyBzdGF5IGFub3RoZXIgZGF5
 

Norman peters wrote:

This album is a preferred alternative in our household to most of the uninspiring Christmas music released in the last 50 years.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du-xTAmMKH0 Thank you Bob Rivers!

With the exception of the "Peanuts" Christmas album, The Twelve Pains of Christmas is my favourite. It gives the finger to the CHFI's of the world.

paterson1 wrote:

I have noticed more stations this year mixing in some Christmas music with the regular playlist.  This is what was done normally years ago before the ALL CHRISTMAS stations took over.  The stations that mix in the seasonal tunes will increase the amount as we get closer to the big day.  

When I worked for a few stations years ago on-air, we’d start Christmas music mixed in with regular Dec 1.   We’d have a schedule starting with one song per hour then increase once a week to start and then every few days till we get to Christmas Day when we are 100% Christmas.      This was late 80’s and 90’s when there wasn’t a lot of current Christmas music.   Now, it’s easier to program 100% Christmas since there’s a lot of artists putting out Christmas albums.      Thank goodness the album project “A Very Special Christmas” in 1987 kicked off the novice idea of current artists taking on classic Christmas music then eventually artists and writers were composing new Christmas songs.      We would decrease seasonal music on Dec 26 & 27.   Notice I said seasonal music.  We would only play winter-themed songs after Christmas because Santa Claus had already come to town so any Santa songs would not be played on Boxing Day and the 27th.  After the 27th we would go back to our regular format as listeners are then thinking New Year’s Eve.

I’m glad the all-Christmas format always gets 98.1 CHFI the #1 spot here in Toronto!   They go all-Christmas in late November and go right through till Dec 31.   Glad the Christmas format is usually a #1 format in North America.

Last edited by djwildbill (December 1, 2023 12:42 pm)

I walked into the dentist's office for my cleaning, this morning. Continuous Christmas music was flowing from the speakers.

"CHFI?", I queried.
"How did you know?", was the response. 

I was never so glad to leave the dentist's office. 

RadioActive wrote:

Listening to it was like pulling teeth...

Ba-da-boom!