Oh, I’m quite sure you’ve been bombarded with various
versions of “Jingle Bells”, “Jingle Bell Rock”, and “Jingle Bells, Batman
Smells” since well before Halloween. Don’t let that put you off holiday season
songs, though. The ones you probably haven’t been hearing a dozen times a day will
turn around the “Bah Humbug” attitude that fucking “Christmas Shoes” song
induces. Clean that sleet out of your stocking to make room for these 50
festive and freaky holiday season favorites delivered down your chimney with
Psychobabble’s Christmas seal of approval!
50. “Merry Xmas
Everybody” by Slade
With its glitzy lights, gaudy decorations, and multi-layered
garb, Christmas is the glammest holiday. Wolverhampton glammers Slade
recognized this and cut one of the all-time seasonal classics with an anthem
made for stomping through slush in platform boots.
49. “Christmas
Everyday” by The Miracles
If you’re more inclined to go for a slow, romantic stroll in
fresh, clean snow, “Christmas Everyday” will be more your speed. Smokey’s love
is such a perennial gift that she could turn any day into December 25. That
would be a welcome prospect if every holiday song sounded like this one.
Nice try, Flo and Eddie, but there’s no way to disguise your
insane humor and banshee harmonies. The Turtles tried to pull one over on us by
calling themselves The Christmas Spirit when they released the whacky,
sleigh-bell bashing “Christmas Is My Time of Year” in 1968, but it is as
recognizable a product of the great L.A. quintet as “Happy Together” or
“Elenore”.
47. “Run, Rudolph,
Run” by Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry strips off Johnny B. Goode’s gunny sack and
wraps him up in a red suit. There’s nothing especially novel about “Run, Rudolph,
Run” aside from its holiday theme and the fact that it wasn’t actually written
by Rock & Roll’s papa (it was actually co-written by Christmas song merchant
Johnny Marks, who also counts “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “Rockin’ Around
the Christmas Tree”, and “Holly Jolly Christmas” among his accomplishments),
but even the most generic Berry-Rock rocks.
46. “All Our
Christmases” by The Majority
Like a few other songs on this list, the only Christmassy
thing about The Majority’s bubblegummy “All Our Christmases” is the word
“Christmas” in its title. No matter. The kiddie giddiness of this gumdrop of
British pop will still put you in the holiday spirit.
45. “Thanks for
Christmas” by The Three Wise Men (AKA: XTC)
Some cheesy synth settings and corny lyrics cannot conquer
Andy Partridge’s enchanting way with a melody and wandering chord sequence.
When Partridge failed to convince some women on the Virgin Records staff to
sing his confection under the “sacrilegious” moniker The Virgin Marys, he cut
it with XTC as The Three Wise Men. Oh, Andy. You didn’t fool anyone with the
Dukes of Stratosphear either.
44. “Merry Christmas,
Baby” by Otis Redding
You know it could have gone either way with Otis Redding. He
could have easily spent Christmas morning in a state of “Mr. Pitiful”-style
mourning. Fortunately, he spends it in “Happy Song”-style merriment, serenading
that baby who always treats him nice. He even breaks out into laughter in the
middle of it. So will you.
43. “Christmas in
Hollis” by Run DMC
Run DMC are having an even luckier holiday. They just found
a wallet with a million dollars in it, which turns out to be a genuine gift
from Santa! Thanks, Santa, but you are going to go broke handing out gifts like
that. And you, dear listener, are going to go breakin’ when you hear “Christmas
in Hollis”.
42. “Santa’s Beard”
by The Beach Boys
Going to department stores to crawl onto the lap of some
drunk in a dirty white beard is a holiday tradition as common as guzzling egg
nog or snogging under the mistletoe. The Beach Boys commemorate it with
“Santa’s Beard”, a chugging chunk of Californian doo-wop in which Mike Love
gives his little bro the usual story about how that funky cat in the mall is
just one of the real Santa’s helpers.
41. “Wintertime”
by The Steve Miller Band
Steve Miller crafts a piece of seasonal mood music with the
windy, icy “Wintertime”. It wouldn’t be a Steve Miller Band song if it didn’t
rip off some other song (The Mamas and the Papas already used that melody in
their own icy weather lament, “California Dreamin’”, Steve!), and it wouldn’t
be a Steve Miller Band song if we worried about that.
40. “Winterlude”
by Bob Dylan
This frosty treat from New
Morning will make you picture Bob Dylan hand-in-hand with his lady friend
skating figure eights on an iced-over pond. Hilarious! “Winterlude” is also a
genuinely lovely little waltz.
39. “The Fox in the
Show” by Belle and Sebastian
Belle and Sebastian’s seasonal picture piece would be lovely
if it wasn’t also so emotionally anguished in that understated B&S way.
Stuart Murdoch paints a trio of portraits of desolation, but it’s the opening
image of that hungry little fox wandering through the snow that is the most
indelible… and the most seasonal.
38. “Rain, Sleet,
Snow” by Paul Revere and the Raiders
Here’s where things get real weird. Mark Lindsay chastises
the mailman for failing to deliver his Christmas cards over what may be his and
the Raiders’ heaviest riff ever. Plus there’s a Salvation Army band and a
string section.
37. “My Favorite
Things” by The Supremes
Its smattering of Christmassy images (mittens, wrapped
packages, sleigh bells, snowflakes, “silver white winters”) have made this
number from The Sound of Music an
honorary holiday song. The Supremes did supreme work with it on their 1965 LP Merry Christmas, which is otherwise
fairly dire.
36. “Step Into
Christmas” by Elton John
Slade started this list with the grungier side of glam. On
the genre’s flip side, Elton John was more like a human Christmas tree: bright,
and blindingly colorful. “Step Into Christmas” reflects all of those lights and
colors with an infectious chorus, and for some reason, laser-beam sounds.
35. “Winter
Wonderland” by Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis is not glammy. He is not punk. He is not even
a smidgeon Rock & Roll. But let’s broaden our horizons a little here,
kiddies. Because nothing instantly sparks that Christmassy feeling like Mathis’s
1958 Merry Christmas album, and Al
Ham and “Sing Along with” Mitch Miller’s arrangements are undeniably magical.
There is even a touch of eeriness to that interlude that briefly skis away from
Richard Smith and Felix Bernard’s composition. If a Currier and Ives print made
sounds, those sounds would sound like this.
34. “Snow Surfin’”
by Zeke Sheppard
OK, that’s enough squareness for now. Zeke Sheppard will
shave the corners off that ice cube with a smashing snowball of soul called
“Snow Surfin’”. It’s a tribute to the wintery sport of skiing, but I do not
recommend listening to it while wearing your skis, because it will get you
shimmying so hard you’re likely to go off course into a tree.
33. “I Wish It Could
Be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard
Rock & Roll wizard Roy Wood honors Phil Spector and
mocks the commerciality of Christmas with one wild wall of sound. The dinging
cash register that begins this mad track is the only thing with any breathing
room. The rest is a massive mound of sound with saxes, a children’s choir,
sleigh bells, and the kitchen sink. “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everday” is
stuffed like the stocking of a very, very, very good boy on Christmas morning.
32. “Freeze Tag”
by Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega’s ode to wintertime games, however, is as airy
and delicate as a snowflake. It is the sound of frosted breath and boots
lightly crunching snow on a gloomy December afternoon.
31. “Wintertime Love”
by The Doors
Like Dylan’s “Winterlude”, The Doors’ “Wintertime Love”
feels made for a couples skate. But this is a much more robust waltz than
Dylan’s. The lyrics of cold blowing winter winds “blue and freezing’” set the
seasonal scene masterfully.
30. “Israel” by
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Despite its “orphans in the snow” and reference to “red and
green,” it’s hard to really get a handle on how Siouxsie Sioux saw “Israel” as
a Christmas song. But she did, and it’s an effectively moody and catchy record
in the Banshee’s best pop-goth tradition. There’s a bit of sleigh-bell type
percussion and a choir, though it sounds more like vampires chanting at a black
mass than Christmas carolers.
29. “Log Cabin in the
Sky” by The Incredible String Band
This will help you shake that uncomfortable feeling Siouxsie
and the Banshees shrouded you in. It is a gloriously old timey sing-along
perfect for roasting chestnuts over an open fire with your fellow
cabin-dwelling settlers. Winter is only “nigh” in “Log Cabin in the Sky”, but
The Incredible String Band already sound like they’re huddling together to
shield each other from its winds and snows.
28. “Christmas
Wrapping” by The Waitresses
There’s no way The Waitresses’ scroogey attitude isn’t going
to turn around with a funk as exuberant as “Christmas Wrapping”. Patty Donahue
laments a Christmas on which everything that could go wrong goes wrong, but it
all works out in the end. Tracy Wormworth’s popping bass tips you off that it
will long before the final verse.
27. “What Christmas
Means to Me” by Stevie Wonder
You know how excited you’d get as the calendar got closer
and closer to December 25 when you were a kid? Stevie Wonder must have since he
recaptures that feeling so completely with his busting-at-the-seams vocal on
“What Christmas Means to Me”. It’s a slight song, but Stevie gives it all the
weight of a present-packed sleigh.
26. “A Christmas Song”
by Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull are even heavier. “A Christmas Song” is actually
a delicate piece of music with Tull brandishing mandolins in front of whirling
strings in full Maypole mode. However, Ian Anderson’s lyric is as harsh as the
morning news. He calls out the season’s frivolous merrymaking, unable to
process how anyone can celebrate when so many others are homeless and hungry.
Christmas songs do not get any angrier.
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25. “The Elf” by
Al Stewart
If you prefer the more traditional happy holiday song, you
can bury your head back in the sand with Al Stewart’s effervescently cheery “The
Elf”. The creature about whom the future “Time Passages” hitmaker sings
probably isn’t one of Santa’s helpers, but those guys deserve some representation here. It can’t be
easy toiling in Santa’s sweatshop all year while that fat cat gets all the
credit.
24. “Sugar Rum Cherry
(Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)” by Duke Ellington
In 1960, jazz royalty put his stamp on the centerpiece suite
of Tchaikovsky’s beloved holiday ballet. “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies”
is actually part of the ballet’s Pas de Deux, not its suite of world dances,
but it is such an evocative and famous piece of music that the Duke would have
had to renounce his title if he hadn’t included it in his Three Suites. While “Sugar Rum Cherry” does not have the eeriness
of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the
Sugar Plum Fairies”, it still has a real late-night vibe. In fact, the sugar
plum fairies sound like they’ve just rolled in after a boozy all-nighter… which
is exactly what they did if they made the most of their holiday.
23. “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” by The
Crystals
Come now. You didn’t think I’d neglect the greatest
Christmas album ever recorded. It’s just that Phil Spector’s productions are so
great that this list is front-loaded with them. Our first representative is The
Crystals’ stately yet euphoric interpretation of Leon Jessel’s toyful march. It
must fade out mid-verse because there is no way to get those marching soldiers to
come to a proper stop.
22. “The Man with All
the Toys” by The Beach Boys
Toys are front-and-center again, but this time they are
confined to Santa’s bag. The best track from The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album has a slinky groove, elegantly
bleating backups, and extreme brevity. But even “The Man with All the Toys” isn’t
as short as…
21. “Christmastime
(Is Here Again)” by The Beatles
…“Christmastime (Is Here Again)”, which barely makes it past
one minute. The only proper song The Beatles recorded for their kooky
fan-club-only Christmas record series is nonsensical (what does Ringo’s bark of
“o. u. t. spells ‘out’” have to do with anything?) but catchy as “Hello,
Goodbye”. Ringo’s drumming is as mighty as the Abominable Snow Man.
20. “Skating” by
Vince Guaraldi Trio
Perhaps the coolest thing about CBS’s beloved A Charlie Brown Christmas special is the
employment of legit jazzmen to compose and cut its soundtrack. Although it is
pure jazz, the music is still fit for kids and perfectly in tune with the
season it supports. No other track captures the quietly giddy feel that follows
first snow falls and ice-rink outings than the tinkling “Skating”. Visions of
Peanuts on ice will dance in your head.
19. “2000 Miles”
by The Pretenders
Tucked at the end of The Pretenders’ elegiac third album,
“2000 Miles” is just as picturesque as Guaraldi’s “Skating”, but instead of
seasonal joy, it draws up feelings of nostalgia and loss. Composed in the wake
of the deaths of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon, “2000 Miles” finds
Chrissie Hynde experiencing the very bitter sweetness of experiencing her first
Christmas after losing her bandmates. Gut-wrenching.
18. “Sleigh Ride”
by The Ronettes
OK. Let’s stop wallowing in death. This is Christmastime,
and what we really want to do is recapture the innocent feelings of wonder that
we always felt at this time in days past. Nothing will make you feel like a kid
again like The Ronettes’ woozy take on “Sleigh Ride”.
Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding.
17. “Merry Christmas,
Baby (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” by The Ramones
Of course, not everyone gets to snuggle up together like two
birds of a feather at Christmastime. Less harmonious couples are more likely to
spend December 25th rattling the decorations with screams and
insults. Joey Ramone knows that this is in the cards for he and his girlfriend,
but that really isn’t how he wants to spend the most festive of holidays—even
though fighting is a lot punker than going for sleigh rides in a wonderland of
snow.
16. “Winter” by
Family
Oof… Family have it even worse. They hate the whole winter
season! These Grinches of British psychedelia complain about how the season’s
ice-cold winds and snowy ground bring them down and make them want to
hibernate. The grouchy lyric is matched with a majestically barren soundscape
of endless ice and snow.
15. “Child’s
Christmas in Wales” by John Cale
If you’re brought down by Family’s anti-winterism but dig
their majesty, I can refer you to John Cale’s “Child’s Christmas in Wales”. It
is similarly majestic, but the lyric is so abstract that it’s hard to suss what
Cale’s on about at all. Yes, there are slivers of Dylan Thomas references, and
even Christmas ones (“With mistletoe and candle green”), but this “Child’s
Christmas in Wales” more explicitly name checks Halloween and citrus murders.
It’s beautiful though.
14. “Santa Claus Is
Coming to Town” by The Crystals
So is the preamble of The Crystals’ version of every kids’
favorite holiday threat. All of the magic of sneaking downstairs to peak
through a frosty windowpane to spy Santa and his eight tiny reindeer is present
in that 35-second intro. Then the fat man busts through the wall like the Kool-Aid
Guy as the Wrecking Crew bashes away beneath La La Brooks’s hearty vocal.
Holiday heavy metal.
13. “Snowman” by
XTC
Like The Ramones, XTC is having romantic troubles, and like
Family, aversions to chilliness. Andy Partridge is getting the cold shoulder
from the woman of his desire, and it leaves him feeling like a snowman and
shivering as if it’s winter already. You’d think it was winter with those gusts
of echoing wind and methodically shaking sleigh bells.
12. “Santa Claus”
by Throwing Muses
Another great college rock band of the eighties is also
making some seasonal correlations, though Throwing Muses’ are a lot more
positive than XTC’s. When Kristin Hersh sees her man, he makes her light up so
much that she mistakes him for that dude who makes every kid light up on
December 25th. She’s so giddy with love that she starts ho-ho-ing. You
may find yourself doing the same.
11. “Winter” by
The Rolling Stones
Oh, these songs called “Winter.” Whine, whine, whine! Poor
British rock stars like Family and The Rolling Stones can’t deal with low
temperatures and a bit of snow. Yet, like Family’s “Winter”, the Stones’ is a
marvelous piece of mood music, and Mick Jagger’s references to Christmas tree
lights may put you in the seasonal mood even if that is quite the opposite of his
intentions. Paul Buckmaster’s sheets-of-ice string arrangements deserve a lot
of the credit too.
10. “Riu Chiu” by
The Monkees
More reverent to the season is The Monkees’ enchanting a
capella version of a medieval Spanish Christmas carol called “Riu Chiu”. A
prayer for the nativity, it is one of the few explicitly religious songs on
this list, and you may feel like you’re sitting in a cathedral while listening
to the incredible four-part chorale of Micky, Mike, Peter and Davy (or Chip
Douglas, if you’re listening to the studio version) as they perform “Riu Chiu”
live for NBC’s camera. Peter recently named this as his favorite Monkees song.
9. “A Christmas Camel”
by Procol Harum
There sure isn’t anything religious about Procol Harum’s “A
Christmas Camel”. Keith Reid’s lyric is an utterly baffling boggle of holiday,
Arabic, and straight-up “huh?” images. “Some Arabian sheik most grand
impersonates a hot dog stand”? Whatever you say, Keith. “A Christmas Camel” is
also one of Procol’s most sweeping and seductive creations, and the great Gary
Brooker croons it as if it isn’t total nonsense.
8. “There Ain’t No
Sanity Claus” by The Damned
Now, you didn’t expect traditional holiday sentiments from
The Damned, did you? That title is a typically daffy Chico Marx quote (Sayeth
Groucho: “It’s all right, that’s in every contract. That’s what they call a
sanity clause.” Sayeth Chico: “You can’t fool me. There ain’t no Sanity Claus.”).
The rest of the lyrics imagine the band’s members going crazy in sundry ways,
and the mania ends with some sleigh bell rattling and ominous ho-ho-ho-ing. Vicious
as a rabid reindeer.
7. “I Saw Mommy
Kissing Santa Claus” by The Ronettes
Phil Spector pulls a similar trick with “I Saw Mommy Kissing
Santa Claus” that he did with “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, though he
doesn’t even need dialogue this time. The twinkling music, sounds of footsteps,
and big, wet, smacking kiss say everything necessary before the band breaks out
and Ronnie breaks in. Percussion clatters, horns and Ronettes harmonize like
devils and angels, strings soar like Santa in his sleigh, and Ronnie stands
enraptured in the center of it all. Magic.
6. “A Hazy Shade of
Winter” by Simon and Garfunkel
And now we’re back to the griping, but Paul Simon’s problems
are a lot deeper than the snow that bugs Family and the Stones. Creative
opportunities are long past. Hopes and plans fade away. Life fades away. A
relentlessly pounding backing that clings to the nastiest acoustic guitar riff
you’ll ever hear rocks harder than anything else Simon and Garfunkel ever
created.
5. “My Favorite
Things” by John Coltrane
I’m not sure if John Coltrane had the song’s holiday
implications in mind when he recorded “My Favorite Things”, but it captures the
lightness and happiness of first snowfalls as effectively as Vince Guaraldi
Trio’s “Skating”. It also does a lot that the Trio didn’t do as Trane blisses
out in wintery revelry, spinning out strands of soprano sax like unspooling
ribbon. Lose yourself in the seasonal spirit for fourteen transcendent minutes.
4. “Marshmallow World”
by Darlene Love
Phil Spector gets cheeky with his too-elegant strings and
pounds them to dust with a pouncing piano riff and the heaviest rhythm section
this side of Zeppelin. Then everything swells and swoons, and Darlene Love does
the thing that makes her the greatest seasonal soul singer of them all.
“Marshmallow World” is as ecstatic as music gets.
3. “Christmas” by
The Who
The Who’s “Christmas” exposes one of the major problems with
religious dogma. If you have to pray and grovel and, well, know that the God concept exists to get into heaven, how can a boy
who is deaf, dumb, and blind be saved? The two extremes of Tommy are well represented on one of its greatest tracks. The
verses are jackhammer heavy. The “see me, feel me” refrain is angelically
ethereal. All of The Who’s greatness wrapped up in one, shining Christmas
package.
2. “Father Christmas”
by The Kinks
The Kinks’ greatness shines out of their own holiday classic
too. “Father Christmas” is a hilarious, pointed, and poignant reaction to punk
and Britain’s late-seventies destitution. Kids don’t need fucking toys when
they’re starving. But they will take a machine gun to scare all the other kids
on the street. This is one of the very few Christmas songs you’d be happy to
hear on any day of the year because it’s so catchy, so powerful, and so
endlessly relevant.
1. “Christmas (Baby,
Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love
It takes a mighty talent to best The Kinks’ holiday
onslaught. Darlene Love is that mighty talent, and she will destroy you completely
with her plea for her love to return and rescue Christmas from a pit of
loneliness and despair. Those choruses of “Deck the Halls”, those clanging
church bells, those pretty Christmas tree lights have lost all their charm as
Love pines for her lost love with astounding commitment. Her vocal fireworks
ignite the sky as she reaches ever higher, shouting “Please! Please! Please!”
The late Leon Russell responds in kind with his consoling, ascending piano
lines. “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” is a magnificent piece of music, as
emotionally devastating as most Christmas songs are frivolous and mindless. But
we’ve got no room for frivolousness here on Psychobabble…just the very best
seasonal songs rock, pop, soul, punk, and jazz have to offer. Make your season
its best by spinning some of these. Have a fab one.
