[Andrew Gigacz]

Where do you sit when it comes to Christmas carols and other Christmas songs? Are you a traditionalist? Do songs like Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night and Away in a Manger dominate your household on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?

Or are you more likely to roll out the less religious but still traditional favourites like, Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town?

Perhaps you favour some of the more recent Christmas-themed songs, like John and Yoko’s Happy Xmas (War is Over), Wizzard’s I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day or Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime.

Well perhaps not very recent. Those three tracks were all released in the ’70s! That still feels recent to me.

I quite like all of the above songs, but I must admit to having become a little tired of them in recent years. I don’t mean to be a Grinch, but there’s only so much Christmas musical saccharine I can take.

Rather than whinge about it, a couple of Christmases ago I decided to put together a list of alternative Christmas songs. I was looking for ones that captured the moods of Christmas – good and bad – without being sickly sweet.

I had a few in mind already. One of the first that came to mind was a song called Santa’s Beard by my favourite band, They Might Be Giants. It may have an innocent-sounding title, but the song as actually a tale of woe about a man’s wife getting a little too friendly with his friend who’s wearing a Santa suit.

There were other They Might Be Giants Christmas songs I had in mind, but I wanted to expand my festive horizons, so I set off on a YouTube and Spotify deep dive. And I found plenty of Christmas treasure that had somehow passed me by over 50-odd years.

The Kinks, for instance – more famous for songs such as Lola and Waterloo Sunset – released a song called Father Christmas in 1977. It too has a happy-sounding title, and an upbeat Christmassy feel to boot, but these shield somewhat darker themes.

Rewinding to the mid 1960s I found an album of Christmas songs by three garage rock bands that blew me away. The album is titled Merry Christmas, but again the songs belie that theme. One of the songs by the Sonics is called Don’t Believe in Christmas. And why doesn’t the lead singer believe in Christmas? “Cos I didn’t get nothin’ last year”!

And then there’s Christmas Spirit??, sung with a Dylan-esque twang by The Wailers, described by one reviewer as “relentlessly negative in its assessment of the holiday season”. And it is.

Yes, there’s a certain Christmas cynicism to some of these tracks but they’re generally a lot of fun, and they can help to break up the monotony of the festive songs you’ve heard maybe once too often.

And then there are classics such as Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy and the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. They can help break up a day in which you’ve already heard Jingle Bells five times.

What other alternative Christmas songs get a spin in your house on December 25? Are there any I should be adding to my Christmas Crackers Spotify playlist?

[Laura_C]

I’m really not a fan of the traditional Christmas songs so I appreciate your compiling this playlist. I do love Fairytale of New York and How to Make Gravy – perhaps you could add those to your playlist?
I was at a local carols by candlelight event and the MC said “hey kids, show us your best dancing” then she played Good King Wenceslas!
Merry Christmas

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