Happy Xmas, haters: A few words in defense of 'Wonderful Christmastime' by Paul McCartney

I sometimes feel like it wouldn't be Christmas if I hadn't spent at least a day or two on social media defending Paul McCartney against the latest round of seasonal attacks on the synth-driven holiday genius of "Wonderful Christmastime."

There's even a meme that's been making the rounds in 2021 that uses scenes from Peter Jackson's "Get Back" documentary to illustrate McCartney and his fellow Beatles discussing the prospect of learning the song for possible inclusion on the album.

"Can we try my song about simply having a wonderful Christmastime?" McCartney asks.

The next frame shows George Harrison and Ringo Starr both saying "No."

John Lennon shoots it down while underscoring his contempt by emphatically tossing an F-word in front of the "no."

Which brings us to a closeup of McCartney's face, thinking, "I need to break up the Beatles."

I'll be honest. It's a cute meme.

And it doesn't take much effort to imagine Lennon being overly dismissive of "Wonderful Christmastime" — especially if it had been around in 1969.

The man was wrong about a lot of great McCartney songs at that point in their strained relationship.

But there's no record of him ever having had a thing to say about "Wonderful Christmastime."

Sometimes a meme is just a meme.

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So much hate for 'Wonderful Christmastime'

It does, however, illustrate a sad reality — that "Wonderful Christmastime," despite its enduring appeal more than 40 years after the single's release, is understood to be a simply awful record.

It recently finished sixth on a list of 10 worst Christmas songs at USA TODAY, where the song was dismissed as "a very trite tune."

It topped a list of 10 worst Christmas songs at Esquire, which called it "the Beatles of terrible Christmas songs" and "a love song between a middle-aged man and the new Casio keyboard he got in his stocking."

And those are kind words compared to the beatdown it suffered at Ultimate Classic Rock, where it topped the list of 10 worst Christmas songs.

"These few melody lines, probably pecked out by Paul McCartney on a Mellotron while sitting on the loo, are among the worst our ears suffer every December," their critic sneered.

"There oughta be some kinda law banning McCartney's not-so-wonderful Christmas song from the airwaves."

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Does 'Wonderful Christmastime' suck?

That same website published a story called "Does Paul McCartney's 'Wonderful Christmastime' Suck? — Great Rock Debates," in which two critics chose a side and ran with it.

The case against the song began as follows:

"If there is a hell and they celebrate Christmas (highly unlikely), then Paul McCartney's 'Wonderful Christmastime' must play on an infinite loop from mid-November to New Year's Day. In fact, maybe McCartney signed a deal with the devil, and in exchange for boundless musical talent, he was required to inflict Satan's ultimate instrument of torture upon the earth. How else to explain this abysmal seasonal horror?"

It should be noted that McCartney prevailed in the poll at the end of the article with 64.9% of the respondents voting "No!" when asked "Does Paul McCartney's 'Wonderful Christmastime' suck?"

It's no 'Eleanor Rigby.' But it wasn't meant to be

And that's because most people can appreciate the song for what it is — a somewhat sappy synth-pop trifle that captures the magic and charm of the season while pushing the musical envelope a bit without abandoning the simple pleasures of a well-placed hook.

It feels like Christmas morning.

There are sleigh bells, a bassline that thumpity-thump-thumps like Frosty the Snowman and a reference to a children's choir.

There are no actual children, just McCartney harmonizing with himself and playing all the instruments, an approach he'd been experimenting with in sessions for the homegrown New Wave DIY of an album that could easily be viewed as a companion piece, "McCartney II."

There's a dashed-off charm to the music and lyrics of "Wonderful Christmastime."

After setting the tone with "The mood is right/ The spirit's up/ We're here tonight/ And that's enough," he rhymes "The choir of children sing their song" with "Ding dong/ Ding dong/ Ding dong."

Suffice it to say, it's no "Eleanor Rigby" — or "For No One" — in terms of emotional depth.

Nor was it meant to be.

The fact that he's able to capture the essence of holiday cheer in 3 affable minutes and 47 seconds is as much a tribute to the genius of McCartney as Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave at a funeral no one attended.

He's just applying his talents to two very different pursuits. One is meant to break your heart. The other? Not so much.

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It's McCartney finding joy in the moment

Another problem people tend to have with taking McCartney's advice and simply having a wonderful Christmastime is that it sounds like such a product of its time.

This much is true. Those squelchy synth lines — either the work of the just-released Prophet-5 analog synthesizer or a Yamaha CS-80 — are very much a product of the New Wave era.

It sounds like the summer of '79.

In much the same way "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" sounds like the Summer of Love.

Most records eventually sound like the era that spawned them, even (or sometimes especially) those that did their best to push the envelope. Most records that don't are self-consciously trying to sound like a previous era.

To me, what matters more is that it sounds like Paul McCartney finding joy and inspiration in the music of the moment and bending what he's taken from that inspiration to his own devices.

The result was a holiday classic that didn't sound at all like what we’d come to think of as a Christmas record at the time.

But 40-odd wonderful Christmastimes later, I can't think of any song that makes me feel more like a kid on Christmas morning.

And that's enough.

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Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Wonderful Christmastime' by Paul McCartney: A defense