Sloth

I’m not terribly fond of Christmas. Big surprise, what with the lapsed-Catholic atheism and all, right? But the real problem with Christmas are those fucking carols. I think it’s pretty clear by now that white people can’t sing anything even remotely religious, and at no time of the year is that more obvious than Christmas. Look, geniuses – your off-tune caterwauling to what I assume is “Deck The Halls” only because I heard the word “holly” occasionally is not heartwarming. I don’t go around screaming Communist worker’s songs every May Day, do I?

Rock ‘n’ roll hasn’t fared much better – most rock Christmas songs are as insufferable as the orginal carols. Do we ever need to hear, say, Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” ever again? That was cool for like a second in 1978. Or John Cougar’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” which goes that extra mile from being simply banal to actively crazy-making by including his then-tiny daughter singing along at the end. PLEASE DO NOT DRAG YOUR OFFSPRING INTO YOUR CHEEZY FUCKING NOVELTY SONGS, FAMOUS PEOPLE! Unless you’re Stevie Wonder, and the song is “Isn’t She Lovely”. That’s OK. Everybody else though can just back that shit off.

Over the course of fifty years of novelty Christmas rock songs, however, there are at least a few that are listenable even if only by accident. As the title of this post mentions, I didn’t include “Fairy Tale Of New York” because, seriously, duh. Any song that includes the lyric “You’re a bum, you’re a punk, you’re an old slut on junk” is by definition the greatest Christmas song ever. Plus I’ve already written about it. So here’s ten other songs for when you can’t find your copy of If I Should Fall From Grace With God:

10) Sleigh Ride – The Ventures. Proof that I will listen to anything as long as it’s been surfified. This particular track is taken from their awesome 1965 Christmas album, which is packed with your basic Christmas standards done Ventur’s style – lots of reverb and tremolo arm wackiness. “Sleigh Ride” is the most awesome because it starts off with the riff for “Walk, Don’t Run” for absolutely no reason except to remind you that they are, in fact, the Ventures.

9) Don’t Believe In Christmas – The Sonics. Ooooooooh, those Northwestern no-goodniks with their loud garage rock and bad attitudes. This is the kind of song that goes on your permanent record.

8) Merry Christmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon. Man, this song gets me every time. I love how totally finger-wagging Lennon is right from the first few seconds of the song: “So this is Christmas / And what have you done?” Way to stick it to those bourgeois clowns, man. Still, nobody would care about this song if it wasn’t for Lennon’s completely offhanded ability to write a perfect melody in his sleep. One of those rare songs that’s both good and good for you.

7) Father Christmas – The Kinks. The one where Santa Claus gets mugged. God bless you, Ray Davies.

6) 2000 Miles – The Pretenders. Peter Buck wasn’t the only one who could wield a mighty Rickenbacker in the 80s. This slow-tempo jangle classic has a heartbreaking vocal from Chrissy Hynde; this track, “Middle Of The Road” and “Back On The Chain Gang” is what makes their ‘84 album Learning To Crawl easily their best record.

5) Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses. Back when CFNY didn’t suck rancid donkey balls, it never really felt like Christmas until Live Earl Jive whipped this one out. A hilarious story of a lovelorn single gal rapping (geddit? the title’s a pun) about how she’s better off without a dude during Christmas. This song is ripe for a Peaches cover.

4) Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight) – The Ramones. One of the only decent tracks off of 1989’s Brain Drain, this one’s fairly self-explanitory: Christmas ain’t the time for breakin’ each others hearts, baby. I’ve always wondered why the Ramones never did a full-on Christmas album, but at least we have this.

3) No Christmas For John Quays – The Fall. What would a Sloth list be without a Fall song. Nothing, that’s what. The recent Peel Sessions box set contains the definitive version of this characteristically acidic piece of Fall screech. Best bit is where Mark E. Smith slurs the name “John Quays” into “junkies”. Textbook.

2) Christmas In Hollis – Run DMC. From that “Very Special Christmas” charity album from 1989. Samples “Back Door Santa”, a great R&B Christmas track in it’s own right, and spins off via some mad rhyming skills into a story about finding Santa’s – or should I say phat? - wallet.

1) Do They Know It’s Christmas? – Band Aid. The song that started a million charity singles, it’s actually a pretty good song, helped along undoubtedly by the songwriting talents of Midge “Ultravox” Ure. Each contributor brings just enough to the vocal to let you know who’s singing but not enough to overpower the song, unlike say “We Are The World”. Plus the video is now hilarious because Bono had like the worst hair ever.