un-Christmassy Christmas songs

Since childhood I have had an aversion to Christmas-in-a-department-store Christmas songs. For the last few years I've been perfecting a playlist of songs which mention Christmas, but which aren't your usual Frosty the Snowman annoying crap. So here is my alternative Christmas playlist:

How to Make Gravy - Paul Kelly

They say it's going to be a hundred degrees, even more maybe, but that won't stop the roast. Who's gonna make the gravy? I bet it won't taste the same

The only song I know about what Christmas is really like in Australia, with our hot, hot Christmas days where we still eat roast turkey and steamed pudding. Also, it makes me cry every time I hear it, which is extraordinary because I hear it four times a day in the month before Christmas.

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

So happy Christmas, I love you, baby. I can see a better time, when all our dreams come true.

Those happy words start the song, it ends with "Merry Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last". Love, disappointment and hate: what Christmas is really about.

Tojo - The Hoodoo Gurus

I said 'Tracey, this is Christmas, don't you know? don't you know?
She said 'Baby, I wouldn't miss this for the world. I've got to blow. I've got to blow.

For many of the people I grew up with in Darwin, Christmas was synonymous with memories of Cyclone Tracey which devastated the city on Christmas Eve 1974. So a song about pleading with Tracey to have mercy because it's Christmas speaks to me. Also, it's the Hoodoo Gurus whose style is very un-Christmassy.

River - Joni Mitchell

It doesn't really snow here, it stays pretty green, I'm gonna make a lot of money and quit this crazy scene.

A beautiful song of lost love, with a jingle bells riff.

Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight) - The Ramones

There's something about hearing Joey Ramone singing mournfully about reindeer and sugar plum fairies that makes me smile.

Another Lonely Christmas - Prince

Baby you promised me (you promised me) you'd never leave, then you went and died on the twenty-fifth day of December

This song is everything I love about Prince and a whole lot more. Reverb, falsetto, lyrics about swimming naked, reverb, melodrama, screaming and more reverb.

Santa's Beard - They Might Be Giants

When she stands beneath the mistletoe screaming, for him to stand beneath the mistletoe screaming, I can't help but feeling jealous, each time she climbs on his knee. Why must she climb on his knee?

Ostensibly a song about Santa, but really a song about your wife cheating with your best friend. And it contains the ultimate anti-Christmas line: "and I don't want that fat guy around." And a piano accordian.

I want an alien for Christmas - Fountains of Wayne

I want a little green guy about three feet high, with seventeen eyes and he knows how to fly, I want an alien for Christmas this year.

This is my favourite find of the year, the kids and I are addicted to singing it loud in the car. 

Comments

[Helen Sharwood]

Nana and Gran have just shared their mutual favourite Christmas "song" the Messiah, accompanied by a bottle of Cloudy Bay smoked salmon and goats cheese.
All-australian performance in 2002, taped in 2009, recorded for ever.

[Elissa]

Thanks Julie, I'm going to check it out! Also a big Rockwiz fan, and love the Tex Perkins / Claire Bowditch Fairytale of New York so it sounds like the album will be right up my alley!

[Julie]

I too like the unChristmassy songs, so was excited when I heard about the RocKwiz Christmas album that came out a few weeks ago. It contains a few of those you've mentioned and a whole lot more.

[Liz]

What a cool idea!! Must sheepishly confess that I don't know the last four - you have me intrigued. Think the boys would enjoy this kind of project, though I must confess to being a sucker for the more stirring, classic carols (I loves me a bit of 'Good King Wenceslas', 'Once in Royal David's City' or 'Oh Little Town of Bethlehem', for example) - I impose choral versions of these in the kids each Xmas and am disappointed by their lack of enthusiasm! I do hate anything too northern-hemispherey, though, and skip through the 'Frosty the Snowman', 'Winter Wonderland' etc on our compilations - also try to avoid snowy decorations, crazy as that sounds!! We should embrace our southern-ness, I say! Will hunt out some of these tracks - esp Tojo for our Darwin Xmas!