'The 179 Days of Christmas' Is a 9-Hour-Long Holiday Song That's Designed to Be Hated

Joren Cull, YouTube
Joren Cull, YouTube | Joren Cull, YouTube

Officially, the longest song ever released is "The Rise and Fall of Bassanova," a 13-plus-hour electronic epic that came out in 2016. Yet somehow, a new song released for Christmas 2018 feels so much longer that that. "The 179 Days of Christmas," introduced to us by The A.V. Club, is almost nine hours of nonstop, terrible lyrics bopping along to a cartoony woodblock beat.

We can't recommend the song, per se, but we certainly appreciate its dedication to the concept. Created by illustrator Joren Cull and musician AJ Ing, it's a play on "The Twelve Days of Christmas" that considers what else someone could receive for the holidays—with a sense of humor straight out of South Park.

Accompanied by cute animations from Cull, the lyrics are a hodgepodge of odd, random, and occasionally super-dark concepts to dwell on. The list begins with things that conceivably could be OK to receive as gifts—say "14 singing Furbies"—and then it gets weirder. Suddenly, you're up to "35 dreams that crumbled," "66 dancing earthworms," "70 unpaid interns," and "94 allergic reactions." To get a sense of the writers' sensibilities, you need only know that the entry for the number 69 is simply a cackle of laughter.

Last year, the Port of Vancouver—as in, the transportation authority for Canada's largest port—hired a choir to sing a three-and-a-half-hour-long song about the 6000-odd items that passed through its control in 2017, labeling it the world's longest holiday song. This video takes the concept to a whole other level.

All of this is to say that if you really want to play a prank on your family this holiday season, stick this tune on your Christmas party playlist. We bet—really, hope—you won't be able to sit through the whole thing. Listen below if you dare.