'Tis the nightmare before Christmas........reprise.

Readers with a long memory will think this one is familiar. Yes, it is but I still feel exactly the same. It's that time of year again and I've just had my first instalment of the 2014 compilation of my second favourite podcast (the first is, of course, the Best Radio Show You Have Never Heard. Try it and let your musical joy be unbounded).

The season is approaching, folks, when we curmudgeons have lots to sound off about. And there's nothing that irritates us more than the annoying, tedious and repetitive Christmas jingles and tunes we are confronted with wherever we go. Yes, it's time to be assaulted yet again by an excruciatingly dippy version of “It’s A Jingly Jangly Jolly Holy Holly Santa Snowy Sleigh Ride” or some such. It really is snow joke (sorry). Once I hear Noddy Holder dementedly screeching 'It's Christmas!', I want to perforate my eardrums with a hot needle.

But I never do, of course, because not all Christmas songs are totally naff. Let Santa Parsons give you an early Xmas present and point you in the direction of some festive musical fun that will make you forget the tuneless turkeys. You might just find your heart filling up with Christmas joy if you follow the link to the podcast called The Yule Log from Hell.

It's a compilation that comes out at this time of year of 'alternative' Christmas songs: some straight, some completely off-the-wall, some politically incorrect, some plain awful, some you would definitely not want your mother to hear but all of them infinitely preferable to Wham, Slade, Wizzard and their like. Take a look below at a few of the songs featured and think where else you could find them. Why not download them all and entertain your friends and family to around 15 hours of festive glee? I have and I will - so, visitors to Colinette Barn (you know who you are!), you have been warned!

 

*  We Three Kings – Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
*  Away In A Manger – Snap-on Tools Male Chorus
*  The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle – Herb Alpert & the Tiajuana Brass
*  Merry F*&$ing Christmas – Denis Leary
*  I’m A Christmas Tree – Wild Man Fischer
*  Nutcracker – The Simpsons
*  Got a Cold in the Node for Christmas – Gayla Peevy

*  Xmas in February - Lou Reed (RIP 1942-2013)
*  Give Me a Second Chance for Christmas – Mike Viola & the Candy Butchers
*  Kidnap the sandy claws - Paul Rubens/Cathrine O'Hara/Danny Elfman