If I never heard Carol of the Bells again I wouldn’t complain.

That’s right, Carol of the Bells.

Even if Fiona Apple and Jewel sang this song with the Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin backing them, it would be my least favorite Christmas song ever written.

If Carol of the Bells was the only Christmas song ever written I’d just give up on the holiday altogether and create my own.

On the slim chance I hear and do listen to it I make up my own lyrics that go something like this:

This song is lame, wracking my brain, song without end; think it’s a sin. Please stop this noise before I destroy.

Yes, that’s how much I hate this song and now that it’s become more ingrained in the popular culture through those Garmin GPS commercials I just want to scream.

This song won’t end, makes my ears bend. Drives me insane, causes great pain. This GPS caused to me to wreck, I broke my arm, song causes harm.

Many people have the audacity to say Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is possibly the worst Christmas song ever written. I will listen to that novelty song any day over Carol of the Bells. In fact I think the only reason poor grandma got run over is because Santa heard Carol of the Bells on the radio and in a feverish attempt to change the station on the sleigh before the reindeer attacked each other struck grandma.

I’m now insane; this song has drained all of my brain. Keeps going on, same old bad song. Grandma got hit because of it. Sung as a round, even the hounds, are howling at it, please make it quit.

To make matters worse, this song wasn’t even intended to be a Christmas song. It was composed by a Ukrainian guy by the name of Mykola Leontovych to celebrate the coming of spring in April.

The original lyrics talk about swallows returning and lambs being born so even the original intent of the song was to bore people like me who think songs sung in round form are horrible.

I never really liked Row, Row, Row Your Boat as a child even when you used the surprise line, “Ha, ha I fooled you I’m a submarine.”

I’m almost to the point where I don’t really believe people like this song. I think they think they have to like it because it’s a secular song you can get away with playing in church if you’re in the hand bell choir, which really isn’t a choir because no one sings. It’s OK to admit you don’t like this song. You won’t go to hell for it because it’s really a song about sheep and birds.

Here come the sheep, here come the birds, don’t you know bird is the word.

Surfin’ Bird would be better to listen to than Carol of the Bells and I think disc jockeys should go on strike at Christmas if they even get a whiff it’s put in rotation. Just replace Carol of the Bells with Surfin’ Bird and I’ll be happy because Surfin’ Bird is a classic.

The only possible way the song could be made palatable is if it was played on banjo. Steve Martin in one of his early routines said you can’t play a sad song on a banjo. Well, wanting to believe I could like this song on banjo I looked it up, found a version and like I say, if I never heard Carol of the Bells again I wouldn’t complain.

This column’s done, set with the sun, now I must run, good Christmas cheer, bring us some beer, this column’s done, hope you had fun — Lance Martin