Hallelujah

I can’t let this slide anymore, nope, not going to do it. Seriously, is the pantry of Xmas songs so picked over that we have no other choice? Since the season rolled over me like an elephant in bed and commercial establishments began playing themed music I’ve heard plenty of annoying stuff. Everything from that sparkly, jazz-hands rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite that gets more airtime from its grave than an extra crawling across a set on The Walking Dead to the creepier version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” featuring Michael Buble, I’ve grudgingly endured them all. But if I know anything, the one place Leonard Cohen’s classic existential crisis “Hallelujah” does not belong, it’s in anyone’s festive Xmas mix.

Apparently, the A cappella band Pentatonix coopted the song sometime last year, and some flunky of an audio engineer saw fit to slap lyrics “All I’ve ever learned from love/ Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you” rendered large and in a major key across everyone’s generic, seasonably mandated musical consciousness. What’s next? Black Flag sings “Jingle Bells” or maybe the holiday remix of Drowning Pool’s “Bodies?”