Back in 2014, having retired from my full-time job, I took some part-time Christmas work at a nearby Tesco Behemoth store as a shopping picker, which entailed going round the store with an electronic gadget, doing people’s on-line shopping. It was boring, brainless low paid work and frankly I wasn’t terribly good at it. My colleagues were, without exception, lovely people, the local managers were, without exception, promoted well beyond their capabilities, incapable of running a piss up in a brewery. The dreary work and the idiot managers were by no means the worst part of the job. That was the music.
Now, I love Christmas. Yes, I am an atheist so the God stuff doesn’t really apply, but the being with family bit really does. It means everything to me and there is nothing that would drag me away from a traditional family Christmas, not even a holiday to warmer climes. I have never been a fan of ‘Christmas music’ but I quickly learned to hate it when carrying out my Christmas work.
The type of music one hears in a shop is not chosen at random. Supermarkets in particular go to great lengths to match music with their customers. I tend to shop in Morrison’s quite a lot and the punters and I am part of the gerontocracy. The music is designed with old people in mind. I fucking hate the music in Morrison’s and often wear my ear pods, but that is nothing compared to the Christmas music that accompanies the picker.
I would have five hours of Slade, Wizzard, Shakin’ Stevens, Elton John, Band Aid, Wham!, John Lennon and The Pogues ft Kirsty MacColl on an endless loop. In no time, I got to know the exact order in which the songs would be played and a sense of dread overwhelmed me.
I quite liked some of the songs, notably those by Wizzard, Lennon and the Pogues but by the time I had finished work, I had learned to hate them. I don’t mean, mild irritation or gentle dislike. Hate is a very strong word, but that’s what it felt like every single day. I would sign in for work, push my trolley around, collecting goods far too slowly and cursing as soon as Noddy Holder launches into, “Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall?” No, I’m fucking not. Stop it, Noddy. Just stop. Then an hour later it would start again. When Christmas was over, so was my time at the Tesco Behemoth. I swear that if Shakin’ Stevens had walked into the store, I’d have rammed a shopping basket up his arse.
A decade or so on and while my dislike of much Christmas music has not disappeared – far from it – I am more able to ignore it. It could be over-exposure or that Christmas music is crap? Paul McCartney is the man who wrote Yesterday, Let It be and Hey Jude. How, then, can you explain his work of sheer excrement, Wonderful Christmastime? Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote Tiny Dancer, Your Song and Rocket Man. What possessed them to come up with Step Into Christmas? I could go on. Don’t tempt me.
Christmas does represent the most wonderful time of the year, apart perhaps from the day you go on holiday. But Christmas music does its best to ruin everything for me.
Now excuse me while I listen to the best festive song ever, Lost Winter’s Dream by Lisa Mychols. Now that, unlike The Fairytale of New York, is a tune.
