Continuing the theme from Terrible Christmas Songs Part 1, here’s part 2. Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg is not only my least favorite Christmas song of all time, it’s probably in my top 10 worst songs of all time. It’s just whiney and bad, and every time I hear it, a little piece of me dies.
How does one even begin to dissect a piece of aural cancer such as this? It sounds like an Air Supply song without any of the faux orchestration or the sexual tension lurking just beneath the surface. The lyrics are painfully descriptive. Listening to the song is like playing one of those text adventures from your salad days on the Commodore 64. Even worse it has no chorus. Who the F writes a song with no chorus? That pretty much ruins your ringtone sales. EDIT: Evidently it does have a chorus, but it’s cleverly hidden in the boredom of the song. See below.
Same Old Lang Syne starts out at about level 3 and never improves. It has no climax, no denoument, no nothing. It’s high point involves drinking a six-pack in the car, which, if porn has taught you anything, means that there should at least be a little wallowing around or something. Maybe a hand shandie. Something. Anything besides this above-ground gene pool of shattered dreams and faded memories. Each time I have the misfortune of listening to it, I halfway expect it to conclude with a shotgun blast and human brain matter oozing down the walls. Mine or his, it could go either way.
Lay your eyes on this pinnacle of songwriting:
We drank a toast to innocence,
We drank a toast to now,
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness,
But neither one knew how.
Oh, cry me a freakin’ river, Dan.
Also, why is this even a Christmas song? It’s one man’s plea for help with the closet door.
Thanks for gayin’ it up, Dan Fagelberg. Peace be with you.
I guess I’ll start with the good: The only point of accuracy in your post is that Same Old Lang Syne is not a Christmas song. It doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas and just happens to take place on Christmas eve.
However, judging from your analysis, it would seem that you have little to no familiarity with song structure. The chorus is the exact excerpt you posted. Please consult Wikipedia if this is still unclear to you.
The climax comes at the third iteration of the chorus, when the song pattern changes. The falling action takes place when Dan’s leaves his ex-girlfriend’s car and she drives off. The dénouement is Dan’s flashback to high school and reconnection with the pain he experienced then. If anything, I would expect a critic of this song to say it is too formulaic, not that it lacks conventional form.
Other than these errors, your post largely consists of colorful insults that you seem to mistake for cleverness. You can’t really replace substance with attempts at creating shock value. Well, you can, but you won’t convince anyone.
Oh, and you don’t need to censor the word “fuck.” This is the internet.
I was referring more to the actual sound of the song rather than the content. Lyrically it has these things, but musically it just sorta drags. The purpose of this post was not to review the song, but to express my utter disdain for it. I suppose I could have gone into greater depth, but that would require further listening and critical analysis. I’d rather spend my time coming up with clever ways to insult a song I hate terribly. The Dan “Fagelberg” was especially clever, I thought. Or juvenile. Either way, I commend you for putting a lot more thought into this post than I did.
And you’re right about the chorus. I don’t know how I missed that one, but none of the points you made make this song suck any less.