Christmas Music - the Good Kind!

This is being written on a packed train somewhere near Durham as I am whisked away to my hometown of Ipswich to spend a couple of weeks eating and drinking too much with my friends and family. Yes, Christmas is a mere week away and so shops and radio stations are awash with the same old Christmas songs being played ad nauseum until you lose whatever Christmas spirit the credit crunch, Joe McElderry and the general suckiness of humanity had left you with.

But fortunately not all Christmas songs make you want to give up on living, there are in fact some rather good alternative ones. So what makes an ‘alternative’ Christmas song? As far as I can see they fall into a few categories –

Songs about things going wrong at Christmas

Examples include I Won’t Be Home For Christmas by Blink-182, a heart-warming tale of a gentleman being driven somewhat insane by Christmas carollers and setting about them with a baseball bat. Which is actually fairly reasonable behaviour in a lot of people’s opinions. Also in this category is Seasick Steve’s Xmas Prison Blues which, as the name suggests, describes the experience of being locked up and experiencing the festivities behind bars. The Kinks are responsible for probably the finest example of this category with Father Christmas. In the song Ray Davies talks of the experience of being mugged by middle class kids when dressed as old St Nick. Well, we’ve all been there. Finally, Billy Idol tells a tale of a drunken father yelling at the needle-moulting symbol of goodwill in the living room in Yellin’ at the Christmas Tree.

Songs about relationships going sour at Christmas

The classic format for an alternative Christmas song, most notably of course in Fairytale of New York by the Pogues featuring Kirsty McCall. Whilst this is the one track on this list that is famous and played everywhere by everyone at this time of year it still deserves recognition for its sheer quality and the pure nastiness of the second verse. Other angry Christmas face offs include the bizarre combination of The Hives and Cyndi Lauper in A Christmas Duel and It’s Christmas (and I Hate You) by Josh Weller and Paloma Faith.  Merry lines from these songs include “I bought no gift this year and I slept with your sister” and the slightly predictable “You’re a ho ho ho”. Christmas TV by Slow Club takes a different route, focussing on a relationship that is falling apart rather than imploding. This is a beautiful and touching song of how one person misses another and wants them there at Christmas despite all the bad things that have happened. But not all Christmas songs about relationships are entirely negative – as witnessed by The Ramones’ conciliatory Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight).

Sweet but not Saccharine

There are also some very positive alternative Christmas songs such as The Magic of Christmas which was released this year to raise money for the RSPCA. Featuring indiepop stars such as Slow Club, Los Campesinos!, Sky Larkin and Copy Haho in hideous jumpers and Santa hats singing about how everything is awesome at Christmas the track brings a smile even to the face of the cynic. Sufjan Stevens has a whole album of excellent Christmas songs in the form of the 5-disc collection Songs for Christmas. The stand out track though is Come On Let’s All Boogie To the Elf Dance! where he sings about all the things going on around his house and neighbourhood as Christmas draws near before concluding with a rendition of Away in a Manger.

Miscellaneous

Finally there are those Christmas songs that defy categorisation. For example the somewhat bizarre Christmas at the Zoo by The Flaming Lips in which Wayne Coyne goes all PETA and attempts to free the animals at the zoo on Christmas Eve only to find them less than keen to vacate their cages. Kidnap the Sandy Claws is probably the best track from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and tells of the evil Ooogie-Boogie’s henchmen making plans to capture Father Christmas and hand him over to their devious master. The Raveonettes’ The Christmas Song is a mixture of happy and sad as the protagonist sings of not being able to spend December 25^th with a lover as the Christmas lights come on. Mew’s beautiful, Sigur Ros style She Came Home for Christmas which tells of uneasy feelings and emotions being dredged up by a woman’s return home for the holiday season. The ambiguity in the haunting vocal makes this far more difficult to categorise than it is to recommend.

So there you have it, a list of rather ace Christmas music that will give you some alternative listening over the holidays. What's more they're all handily compiled in a Spotify playlist which is located right here - Alternative Xmas Playlist

I hope you enjoy it and have a merry Christmas!