Unless your eyes and ears have been clogged with snow for the past month, you should be aware that Christmas has once again reared its fat ugly head. Walking down the high street recently I was assaulted by a barrage of festivity, as the windows were filled with garish decorations and money saving deals offering a sense of false warmth and isolation at half the price. Sure, when Christmas finally arrives it can also offer some amount of joy and relief, but having it rammed down our throats in the weeks preceding the big day leaves me as cold as the icy weather outside.
Christmas songs have a part to play in all this. Not that pop music hasn’t produced a few winter favorites (I might have easily placed 5 different versions of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ in this list), but let’s be honest, there are a lot of truly awful Christmas songs. In an attempt to help you avoid these musical catastrophes, here are a few alternatives which show a little of the darker side of Christmas.
Words: Sleekly Lion
Sparks – Thank God It’s Not Christmas
If there’s a single Christmas song which perfectly captures the tedium of Christmas and the daunting proposition of quality time with loved ones, then this is it. Although surrounded by bright and optimistic instrumentation, the song’s message is very clear; Christmas ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, in fact for some people it can be pretty darn miserable. In the band’s own words, “Thank God it’s not Christmas, when there is only you and nothing else to do.” There’s nothing like a bit of brutal festive honesty.
Nosferatu D2 – It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake)
What’s great about Nosferatu D2’s Ben Parker, is his talent for ridiculing seemingly ordinary things as a way of expressing his own isolation from wider society. This festive offering is no different, as he deconstructs Christmas traditions from present giving, Christmas parties and the ripping up of a plastic pound shop Santa. Crucially though, at the heart of this song is actually a very sweet love song that pinpoints exactly what this holiday should really be all about.
Fucked Up & Friends – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Although a fairly straight reworking of the original, Fucked Up’s take on ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas‘ gets the nod because all the proceeds from the single went to charity. Awwww. In all seriousness, though, there are some truly worthy causes here, with profits from the song split between three charities dealing with the abnormally high numbers of Aboriginal women reported missing or murdered in Canada. As well as Fucked Up, the song features an all star indie rock cast including Bob Mould, Yo La Tengo, GZA, Andrew W.K and comedian David Cross among others. Look out for Cross’ contribution, as he twists Bono’s famous words to “Well tonight thank god it’s them instead of Jews!”. The single is still available to buy here, so get involved and donate to this worthy cause.
This unlikely but inspired coming together between The Hives and Cyndi Lauper from 2008 may go down as a lost Christmas classic in years to come. Following in the tradition of Christmas duets from the likes of Bowie / Crosby and McGowan / MacColl, Lauper and Hives frontman Pete Almqvist confess their infidelities over a classic bit of Christmas cheer. The song manages to avoid any cheesy Christmas clichés though, and there’s something about Cyndi Lauper singing “I went down on your mother” that stays with you long after the song has played out.
Alongside other prolific festive artists Sufjan Stevens, Low and Cliff Richard, Christmas songs for Parenthetical Girls are a serious endeavor. This original from 2009’s ‘The Christmas Creep’ single is the band’s best to date, though, and is backed with a cover of the Sparks classic found earlier in this playlist. ‘Flowers for Albion’ is written about the Christmas blitz of 1940, and although peppered with a romance, exists as a gentle and poignant reminder of much darker times. Although very sad in essence, the song also has a warm nostalgia in its choice of samples and wonderfully poetic chorus, “We kiss on the lips neath the bright magnesium light, must we brave one more blitz, signals sweetness, how could this be Christmas?” In short, my favorite Christmas song ever.
