Controversial Christmas songs: classic and contemporary tunes that spark Holiday debate

Holiday tunes have been merrily sung by carolers, crooners and shoppers rushing out for last-minute gifts.

But have you ever paused while singing a line to your favorite jingle and thought, “Wait, what exactly have I been singing all these years?” You’re not alone.

If the topic is broached at your holiday shindig this year, don’t fret! We’ll have you well-equipped with the backstories of these controversial Christmas tunes. As to whether these songs have aged like wine or milk or were doomed for the naughty list from the start, reader, you be the judge.

Here are 10 Christmas songs that have stirred up controversy over the years.

Frank Loesser’s ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’

While the flirtatious winter duet has been a holiday favorite since Frank Loesser’s jazz number debuted in 1944, its lyrics have sparked controversy in recent years over issues of consent. Lines like “What’s in this drink?” and “Say, what’s the sense in hurtin’ my pride?” have drawn criticism in light of conversations surrounding the #MeToo movement.

The song first faced widespread backlash in 2018, when multiple radio stations, including Cleveland’s Star 102, pulled it from playlists following listener complaints. According to a 2018 New York Times article, the decision prompted intense debate, with some listeners defending the song as a product of its time, while others argued that its undertones were out of step with today’s cultural norms.

Back in 2013, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lady Gaga performed the song but swapped parts (with Gaga singing the lines of the pursuer) for the “Lady Gaga & The Muppets’ Holiday Spectacular.” And in 2019, in response to the heightened discourse, artists John Legend and Kelly Clarkson recorded a revamped version with updated lyrics that emphasized respect and choice. Original lines like “How can you do this thing to me?” were rewritten as “I want you to stay, it’s not up to me.”

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” remains divisive, sparking conversations about whether classic songs should evolve with contemporary values.

Eartha Kitt’s ‘Santa Baby’

Eartha Kitt’s 1953 holiday classic Santa Baby is iconic for its sultry tone and over-the-top material requests. However, the track has been criticized for promoting materialism and reinforcing outdated gender roles.

The conversation got a new twist in 2018 when Miley Cyrus performed a parody version of the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Cyrus humorously swapped the original’s lavish wish list for modern feminist demands, singing about equal pay, reproductive rights, and respect in the workplace. Lines like “Santa baby, I want a yacht and really that’s not a lot, Been an angel all year, Santa baby” were rewritten to “So no more fluff, I’ve had enough, and I can buy my own damn stuff.”

This playful reinterpretation reignited discussions about the song’s place in a more socially aware holiday culture.

Jimmy Boyd’s ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’

This innocent-sounding 1952 tune, performed by Jimmy Boyd, might seem harmless at first, but it’s drawn side-eyes for its awkward premise since its release. The song tells the story of a child who thinks they’ve caught their mother being unfaithful to their father with Santa Claus — a setup that some critics find confusing or inappropriate for a holiday song. Upon its release, the song was initially condemned by the Catholic Church’s Boston Archdiocese for its suggestion of marital infidelity. However, the controversy quickly subsided when Boyd, then just 13 years old, explained that Santa Claus was, in fact, the child’s father in costume.

The song’s cringy lyrics inspired a 2019 “Saturday Night Live” skit starring Cecily Strong who spies on her mom, played by Scarlett Johansson, kissing Beck Bennett dressed as Santa Claus. The twist? Mom and Dad paid a Santa they found on Craigslist. While it’s largely viewed today as a playful holiday staple, the song occasionally sparks debate in online forums about its slightly perplexing narrative, and its most definitely inspired parodies and comedic sketches over the years.

Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’

It’s been 40 years since Band Aid dropped “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. The 1984 hit, which features a supergroup of U.K. rock royalty, remains a well-known charity single — but not without controversy. According to Billboard, the song has raised more than £140 million ($178 million) for causes such as poverty in Africa, but it’s also raised eyebrows.

Critics argue that the song is problematic, particularly with lines like “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.” Ed Sheeran participated in the 2014 rendition of the song — alongside stars including Bono, Harry Styles, Sinead O’Connor, Seal, Rita Ora and more—but spoke out when his vocals were used again in the 2024 megamix version that sampled vocals across the ’84, ’04 and ’14 renditions. He posted on Instagram that he would have respectfully declined the use of his vocals, commenting, “A decade on and my understanding of the narrative associated with this has changed.”

British-Ghanaian vocalist Fuse ODG was invited to collaborate in 2014 but declined,and he’s since called out charity initiatives such as Band Aid online, writing, “While they may generate sympathy and donations, they perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa’s economic growth, tourism and investment, ultimately costing the continent trillions and destroying its dignity, pride and identity. By showcasing dehumanizing imagery, these initiatives fuel pity rather than partnership, discouraging meaningful engagement.”

Co-creator of Band Aid, Sir Bob Geldof, recently pushed back on the criticism, telling ITV News, “Hundreds of thousands of people are alive, probably millions, because of this. That negates every single argument I’ve ever heard.”

Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’

Wherever you are in the world, you know it’s Christmas time the moment Mariah Carey starts belting “I don’t want a lot for Christmas . . .” The tune takes over post-Halloween — whether it’s over car speakers, in crowded shopping malls, or at holiday parties — and earned Carey the nickname “Queen of Christmas.”

However, its inescapable presence has sparked tongue-in-cheek “anti-All I Want for Christmas” memes and petitions, with some jokingly calling for a temporary ban on the song starting in November. Even a Dallas bar made headlines in 2021 for limiting how often it could be played. While the backlash is lighthearted, it highlights how even the most beloved holiday hits can test the limits of festive endurance.

In 2022, Mariah Carey faced a copyright infringement lawsuit over “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Andy Stone of Vince Vance & the Valiants claimed her song ripped off his 1989 track of the same title. Last month, the judge overseeing the case said she was “inclined” to grant Carey’s request to dismiss the lawsuit. According to Rolling Stone, the judge is also “seriously considering” granting Carey’s team sanctions against Stone for what they allege is a “frivolous” filing.

The Killers’ ‘Don’t Shoot Me Santa’

The Killers’ “Don’t Shoot Me Santa” is thematically on par with Christmas horror with an element of campiness. The “boy” character in the song pleads with Santa to spare his life, and makes the case as to why he deserves to live (despite admitting he’s been killing his bullies just for fun) as a jolly Saint Nick serving as judge, jury and executioner says “There’s just no gettin’ around this.”

The more disturbing aspect of this song is Santa telling the boy the “party is over” and that he has a bullet in his gun for him. The music video has major serial killer vibes that could easily be a horror story with creepy and unhinged Santa digging a grave. However, what’s more controversial is the threat of gun violence, especially in an era that’s been plagued by school shootings, now considered a public health crisis for America’s school children.

The band members perhaps would have opted for a different course than they did when they initially released the song in 2007, but they’ve since been vocal about their beliefs surrounding guns.

Frontman of the band Brandon Flowers has been critical of gun violence with songs such as “Land of the Free,” where he bluntly sings, “How many daughters, tell me how many sons, do we have to put in the ground before we just break down and face it? We’ve got a problem with guns.”

James Pierpon’s ‘Jingle Bells’

This classic tune is maybe the most ubiquitous Christmas song of all time and has inspired plenty of elementary school holiday recitals and parodies and rerecordings by various artists over the years. The track itself doesn’t have any controversial lyrics or messages that people would find offensive, but its origin and first live performance are another story.

“Jingle Bells” was originally known as “One Horse Open Sleigh,” and it was the subject of an academic paper by Kyna Hamill of Boston University. In her research, Hamill discovered that the first performance of the carol was done in blackface in a Boston minstrel show in September 1857.

According to an article published in the Guardian in 2017, Hamill didn’t face much backlash for her peer-reviewed paper for at least a year until publications such as Fox News and Breitbart began running segments about it being a target of social justice campaigns.

Hamill told The Guardian that despite the controversy and hate mail she received, she didn’t regret her research.

“I was doing what an academic does,” said Hamill in the Guardian article. “I was trying to do the best research that I could and write it up. I did not have an agenda for Christmas, that’s for sure.”

The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’

In 1987, the Pogues, a London-based band, and English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl released “Fairytale of New York.” The Irish folk-style ballad was written as a duet, with the Pogues’ singer Shane MacGowan taking the role of the male character and MacColl playing the female character. It’s full of celebration and Christmas spirit, but it has some words in there that have attracted controversy.

By 2007, 30 years after the song’s release, BBC Radio edited the holiday tune to exclude a homophobic slur and another term used to insult promiscuous women. At first, the station stood by its decision, but after receiving criticism from listeners, it changed its mind.

In 2018, Justin Myers, a columnist at the time for GQ Magazine, wrote in a personal blog post about how allowing the song to be played on radio uncensored “legitimizes” the homophobic slur.

“The word still has power, sharp, cruel fangs, and is still used to demean and destroy lives of young people up and down the U.K.,” he wrote.

The song was rerecorded in 2020 without the contentious lyrics and has been featured on the compilation album “TikTok Christmas” and the 2022 short film “The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.”

Tiny Tim’s ‘Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS’

Tiny Tim, the ’70s TV staple and ukulele player, released “Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS” amid the ‘80s AIDS epidemic, which catastrophically impacted a generation of LGBTQ people.

Tiny Tim claimed that the song referred to Ayds, a candy bar that was marketed as an appetite suppressant and was withdrawn from the market after the epidemic, and the acronym AIDS became more commonly used in 1982. Tim revealed that his agent even threatened to drop him if he recorded the song.

The song was released in 1985, giving Tiny Tim plenty of time to change the name before releasing it. Lyrics of the song such as “Santa Claus has got the AIDS this year / And he won’t be ’round to spread his Christmas cheer” and “He won’t be yelling out, ‘Ho, ho, ho, ho!’ / But he’ll be screaming out, ‘No, no, no, no!’ / He’s lying sick in bed / Call the doctor there instead” seem to clearly imply that Santa is gravely ill.

On Reddit, Tiny Tim fans debated the origin of the song. A fan who said they were in the top 0.5% of his listeners in their Spotify wrapped three years ago said it was too dark for him to include in any playlists.

“I keep a playlist of non-conventional Christmas songs,” he wrote. “This would’ve been a perfect fit, but it’s too dark, and it’s in especially terrible taste coming out when it did.”

John Denver’s ‘Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk on Christmas)’

The late country-folk star John Denver, known for his wholesome lyrics and sentimental themes, released “Rocky Mountain Christmas” in 1975. He was a singer-songwriter who exuded upbeat, radio-friendly music, so it was a surprise when “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk on Christmas)” was tucked into one of his albums celebrating his favorite holiday.

The track itself is a plea from a child asking his father to put the bottle down this Christmas with lyrics like “Momma smiled and looked outside the window / She told me, ‘Son, you better go upstairs’ / Then you laughed and hollered ‘Merry Christmas’ / I turned around and saw my momma’s tears.”

In a Vice article published in 2018, Alex Robert Ross reported that Denver did not write the song, which is why it would seem a little off from the musician’s usual style. It was written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, the then-married couple best known for fronting The Starland Vocal Band. The controversy of the song stems from listeners saying it was a sad depiction of alcoholism and didn’t inspire much Christmas cheer. However, some fans have expressed that they felt seen by the song. “As a kid, I latched onto the song because, in my head, the song was proof that I was not the only kid to go through this stuff,” wrote one Reddit fan.

During a December 1996 Christmas concert, Denver introduced the song saying, “When we first recorded this song, we thought it was a funny song, but over the years, it’s taken on a little bit more of a serious tone, and although we still do it kind of lightly, there are broader feelings perhaps I have for this song. Tonight, it is our fervent prayer for all of you, for all of us, that we use this special holiday to grow even closer together, especially as families, rather than as an excuse to become further and further apart.”