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The Nation's Pulse
The Greatest Christmas Song
It’s a real rock tune that’s probably never heard on 97.1 or 94.3 or 102.3 this time of year.
‘Tis the season for holiday music that intrudes, annoys, and entraps. Like a zombie, “Feliz Navidad” dies every year only to return — everywhere. On the car radio, in the mall, on hold, at your kid’s school (provided they omit the holiday’s first syllable) you can’t escape Christmas music.
Bah! Humbug!
The radio staples are as amorphous as they are ubiquitous. The Pogues offer a Christmas anthem for St. Patrick’s Day in “A Fairytale of New York.” Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas” hits the ears as a Yuletide hymn for atheists. And for the densely populated left end of the bell curve, there’s “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” A few Christmas songs for Christians remain, too.
Making a song about Christmas is a good way to get a bad song on heavy rotation. There are too many dreadful recordings about the joyous day to narrow the worst of the worst compositions down below a hundred. The best ones (“White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”) can be counted on an eight-beaded abacus. My favorite is a blunt rock tune that dispenses with the trite musical markers, e.g., a platoon of trumpets or a cherubic choir announcing His arrival, that so unsubtly scream: Christmas song!
The number that most embodies the spirit of the season depicts a violent robbery of Santa Claus. Thirty-five Christmases ago, The Kinks released “Father Christmas,” a gritty tale about a department-store Santa getting rolled by a gang of teenagers. “Father Christmas, give us some money/We got no time for your silly toys/We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over/Give all the toys to the little rich boys.”
It’s a 45 with a sense of humor. It also has a sense of the Beatitudes.
If upon first listen “Father Christmas” rings as cynicism inverting the spirit of giving into one of taking, subsequent spins reveal a track telling us to give thanks for our good fortune rather than the small fortune under the tree. A hoodlum instructs St. Nick to hold off on the Bionic Man costume for his brother and the cuddly doll for his sister. “But give my daddy a job cause he needs one/He’s got lots of mouths to feed.”
“Father Christmas” invites us to be more Christ like. An ode superficially about the ultimate expression of materialism (theft) becomes a spiritual admonition to remember the least among us. Empathy with other people’s troubles occasionally minimizes their troubles. It always minimizes our own. Christmas is a good time to count blessings rather than money.
Though covered numerous times, “Father Christmas” exudes authenticity only in the original. The seventh child of a seventh child, Ray Davies grew up in postwar London’s working class Muswell Hill section. Eventually carted off to live with an older sister’s family, Davies received from another older sister, Irene, several life-changing presents: Elvis records, and, on the day she died of a heart attack while out dancing, a guitar. December 25th meant tearful, inebriated renditions of “Goodnight Irene” at the cramped Davies home.
Ultimately, Ray Davies would play the mugged Santa Claus as he had earlier played the covetous kid. Nine years ago, a week or so after Christmas, a purse-snatching duo shot The Kinks’ lead singer and songwriter in the French Quarter after he pursued them. Maybe the small-money Big Easy thieves misinterpreted his song.
This doesn’t mean other listeners should, too. The multimillionaire rocker’s younger self preaches to his older self as much as anyone else when he instructs: “Have yourself a merry, merry Christmas/Have yourself a good time/But remember the kids who got nothing/While you’re drinking down your wine.”
About the Author
Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The War on Football: Saving America’s Game, blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (64) | Leave a comment
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Joellen| 12.7.12 @ 6:30AM
Aah Mr. Flynn, you might want to check out TLP's much loved contest, which is held every Friday till Saturday evening. I'm just saying.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 12.7.12 @ 7:41AM
The entries there are stacking up as we're waiting for you, Joellen.
Joellen| 12.7.12 @ 7:58AM
Thanks Albert, I'll be there later tonight - must work to pay for all those Obamaphones - now more than ever!
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 10:41AM
Go to The Contest
Give me your Money
It's at a Story
Written on Monday yadda yadda yadda.
But seriously: Wicked Contest over at Monday's Story : The Artist as Ethnographer - Whatever the Hell that means.
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 10:43AM
I guess it wasn't an Accident that it only got two comments. One of them from Occam.
God Bless'im.
Mr. Liberal| 12.7.12 @ 11:30AM
Hey, Flynn, I've got the Christmas lyrics appropriate for you and the rest of the AmSpec readership:
MERRY CHRISTMAS, JINGLE BELLS,
CHRIST IS BORN, THE DEVIL'S IN HELL
HEARTS THEY SHRINK, POCKETS SWELL
EVERYBODY KNOW, NOBODY TELL
The spirit of Christ at AmSpec? I don't think so.
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:48PM
We have the Christmas Spirit.
Merry Christmas Mr. Liberal.
Now, Go Fck Yourself.
Maybe, you can buy yourself an Abortion for Christmas.
I'll even pay for it, for you.
Al Brooks, bleedingheartlib | 12.7.12 @ 8:08PM
When I want Christmas music, Burl Ives is the Man-- not Ray Davies.
Al Brooks, bleedingheartlib | 12.7.12 @ 8:13PM
Golly, it used to be conservatives who disliked "Negro Music"- influenced Rock 'n Roll, now you cons are promoting it despite the lascivious and nihilistic themes often contained therein. 'Lola' is in no way a Christian song. You like the author of Cat Scratch Fever and Sweet Poontang for his Rightist pro-gun outlook-- but his lyrics are decidedly un- Focus On the Family.
And don't tell me to lighten up; YOU guys lighten up.
Appleby| 12.7.12 @ 6:40AM
Christmas for Occupiers and thugs, I suppose. As for me and my house, it's "Messiah" all the way. I have sung "Messiah" every year since 1966, I sing from my original book which cost $1 (they're $12.50 now) and I know almost all the choruses by heart. By the way, there's a creepy movie called "The Victors" in which a spy is taken out on a snowy morning to be shot by a firing squad (this is the end of World War II) as "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" is playing ... no other dialogue. Saw the movie in Cinematography at Bible college. Now that's scary stuff.
KyMouse| 12.7.12 @ 3:14PM
It's ironic that so many churches, including the one in which I was raised (PCUSA), joyously sing Handel's "Messiah" every Christmas -- yet are silent when it comes to telling Jewish folks that the Messiah for whom they wait has already come.
"The woman said to Him, 'I know that when Messiah comes, He will tell us all things.' Jesus said to her, 'I who speak to you am He.'" -- John 4:25-26
Ministries such as Jews for Jesus (www.jewsforjesus.org) aren't afraid or ashamed to share that Good News, even though we sometimes get yelled at, spat upon, or hit.
"I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of salvation to all those who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek [gentile]" -- Romans 1:16
Hallelujah, indeed!
Al Brooks, bleedingheartlib | 12.7.12 @ 8:21PM
"Christmas for Occupiers and thugs:
Yes, somehow one can't picture the Kinks (the name 'Kinks' is itself non-James Dobson-like);
but who says Flynn has to be consistent? Consistent-cy is old fashioned, we've got to liberate ourselves from silly outdated stuck up coldfish martinet priggish Victorian pruderies that tell us we can't sing the lyrics of 'Lola' (eg Lolita in case you can't guess) in public.
Let's all get With It, chickie-sweets!:
because it is Where it's AT.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 12.7.12 @ 7:40AM
"The Pogues offer a Christmas anthem for St. Patrick's Day in 'A Fairytale of New York.'"
Well, if Mr. Flynn likes the non-traditional message from the Kinks, I'm sure he enjoys Mr. MacGowan's classic Christmas spirit captured in the lyrics in the above-mentioned carol:
You´re a bum you´re a punk
You´re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse I pray God it´s our last.
Bill8472| 12.7.12 @ 9:09AM
I always got a kick out of the lyrics written by the world's erstwhile foremost heroin junkie, John Lennon, who wrote the following lyrics:
"And so this is Christmas,
And what have you done?"
I always was prompted at the point to ask "and what have YOU done, John? Scored another hit?"
Seek| 12.7.12 @ 12:58PM
Actually, it was Mark David Chapman who "scored" John's last hit. People like you reek. Culture war (Right), like class struggle (Left), is mere envy masquerading as morality.
markenoff| 12.7.12 @ 3:42PM
In the words of Elvis Costello:
"Was it a millionaire who said imagine no possessions?"
The Other Side of Summer from Mighty Like a Rose
Now you can't afford to fake
All the drugs your parents used to take
Because of their mistakes
You better be wide awake
Seek| 12.10.12 @ 7:51PM
Elvis Costello is a fine musician. And I don't begrudge him for the lyric. Hell, Paul McCartney got in a dig against Lennon, "Let Me Roll It," as payback for Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" a couple years earlier. They still had great respect for one another. (Come to think of it, McCartney and Costello collaborated on Costello's "Spike" and "Mightly Like a Rose" LPs.)
John Lennon had his bad sides -- that's hardly a secret. I read Albert Goldman's full-length biography back in the late 80s, "The Lives of John Lennon." But I've read too many denunciations of him from guardians of Tradition. All share that same poisonous tone of voice, that little voice in the back of their minds that says of his assassin, "There go I, but for the grace of God."
Bill8472| 12.10.12 @ 11:09AM
Envy, right. That's me, envious of John Lennon.
Seek| 12.10.12 @ 7:53PM
Yes, envy. Envy of his talent, fame, independence and money. Why else would you hate him?
Al Brooks, bleedingheartlib | 12.9.12 @ 12:50AM
John Lemon smoked all that there mary-jew-wanna, n' he married that Chinese girl, Oko Yono.
Al Brooks, bleedingheartlib | 12.9.12 @ 12:54AM
oh yeah! an George Hairyson wrote that song 'Pigs', about pigs eatin' bacon or sumpin', so what 'd Charlie Manson do about it? he turned the Tate household into bacon!
I read it in a magazine once.
Bill8472| 12.10.12 @ 11:11AM
And then he and John Elliott scored a heck of a lot of heroin. "I need a fix 'cause I'm goin' down." And they had kids, too. I bet the kids were great with that.
JimH| 12.7.12 @ 7:43AM
Imagine my surprise to see Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis used in a commercial, sung by a pack of soccer moms in a van. When you are tired of all the standard Christmas music let me recommend Dr. Demento’s Christmas collection.
Tina B| 12.7.12 @ 8:40AM
It's a jamming song and thanks so much for reminding me. listening to it now on iPad and some great speakers, thanks to iTunes and you, Daniel.
Saw them in Cali in early 70s and they ended the concert with a slide show with a slide of a stained glass window of Christ, the Good Shepherd. Nice subtle little message, I thought.
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 10:45AM
Still waiting for the Girls, back at the Contest.
Monday/artist Ethnographer.
Hello?
Tina B| 12.7.12 @ 11:42AM
I am already on it, Sir Timothy of the Analogy Convention. It takes a bard some time you know. I am pondering the correct political situation as we sit/stand/crawl this very moment, and the correct melody, rhyme scheme, so many things to be considered. Gotta ponder some more first.
Tina B| 12.7.12 @ 8:42AM
Albert, I'm trying to find your song on iTunes. . .is it there, per chance? Those lyrics are so catchy.
Moe Blotz| 12.7.12 @ 9:40AM
Youse can hear Father Christmas on SiriusXM.
Tina B| 12.7.12 @ 11:44AM
Bless your heart, SUBVET, thank you. And Merry Chritmas to you and your family.
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:50PM
Isn't he great?
Out of his mind.
But, still Great.
Bill8472| 12.7.12 @ 9:06AM
The full lyrics of the verse quoted are:
But give my daddy a job cause he needs one
Hes got lots of mouths to feed
But if youve got one, I'll have a machine gun
So I can scare all the kids down the street
I always liked the "machine gun" part.
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:51PM
Ya know, we have a Contest going on at Monday's "Artist as Ethnographer".
And you sound like a Natural.
Bill8472| 12.7.12 @ 9:12AM
When I was a kid, in the 1950s, we used to sing,
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm tellin' you why
Santa Claus is dead
Well, we were about 8 years old, what do you expect?
JimH| 12.7.12 @ 9:14AM
As a child during the cold war we used to sing about Khrushchev the red nosed Russian.
Skippy| 12.7.12 @ 6:10PM
Tom Lehrer Xmas song from a half century ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtZR3lJobjw
Warning!
Contains actual humor.
Do not use around liberals.
JimH| 12.8.12 @ 7:51AM
Yes, this song is part of my Tom Lehrer collection. It's hard to choose a favorite song of his; National Brotherhood Week, The Masochism Tango, The Old Dope Peddler or the classic Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.
Appleby| 12.9.12 @ 8:18AM
My all time favourite Tom Lehr song is "The Merry Minuet." But I admit that when I was in Bible College we used to get a big laugh out of his "Vatican Rag." Mama said it was a testimony to God's sense of humour that he didn't burn that school to the ground.
Bill8472| 12.10.12 @ 11:12AM
"...and maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two..."
fmm| 12.7.12 @ 10:13AM
Sorry, but that song like so many others in modern times is a sop to PCness and completely misses the point of Christmas. Merry Christmas to you anyway.
Ross Kaminsky| 12.7.12 @ 11:13AM
Amazing...when I read the title of your article, Dan, I thought "Father Christmas" is the best Christmas song, although as a Jew I'm not sure I'm quite qualified to offer judgment.
The Kinks have been my favorite band for decades. I have something like 35 or 40 Kinks albums (on vinyl) in the next room.
Thanks!
Ross Kaminsky| 12.7.12 @ 11:15AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwxzMPnT5qY
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/k/k.....79042.html
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:53PM
So, you can Slum it on this site, but you can't come to mine?
Where's JackinWi when I need him?
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:59PM
The Contest is open til 7pm, Saturday, as I know you're not doing anything.
Tina B| 12.7.12 @ 11:37AM
Thank you. Enjoyed that look at that young face. Ray was definitely an iconoclast. I have a lot of Kinks vinyl also. Just hearing the first few licks of "girl, you really got me goin" at the end of the video, got me going all right, back to the age of 16 . . .
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:54PM
Come to The Contest, Tina B.
This is Captain America calling.
Tina B| 12.8.12 @ 2:46PM
Almost finished Timmie, just tying up loose ends. Oh boy.
Ronsch| 12.7.12 @ 12:26PM
Daniel,
Funny you should mention "Father Christmas." I do a rock and roll radio show on Saturday afternoon/evening in Juneau, Alaska...It is a volunteer gig on the local NPR station, and I play all sorts of irreverent Christmas and Hanukkah songs at the holidays...I am on 1600 to 1800 on Saturday, Alaska Standard Time and the show is called "The Rock And Roll Radio Show With Ronnie Ramone."
While I like the traditional songs, I enjoy mixing in some parodies as well..."Father Christmas" was covered by a Texan punk rock group called "Bowling For Soup" last winter for their album "Merry Freakin' Christmas."
Yes, I know there is a dj on the Left Coast with the same moniker...but, hey it's all good...My show is heavy on 1980s/1990s rock and roll the way it was meant to be...fun!
Anyone interested can stream it live at http://www.kxll.org/
By the way Daniel, there are a lot of parodies that done by Bob Rivers for Christmas...
Albert Constantine Jr.| 12.8.12 @ 9:39PM
...though I did catch you playing Adam Sandler's "Hannukkah Song Part 3 this Saturday...
Kingofthenet| 12.7.12 @ 12:50PM
"Have yourself a merry, merry Christmas/Have yourself a good time/But remember the kids who got nothing/While you're drinking down your wine."
Boy can we get a little more melancholy?
TLP| 12.7.12 @ 2:58PM
I Guarentee that most of these people are giving to Food Banks, and giving Toys, through their local Churches, and Fire and Police Departments.
Trust me, King.
I know I am.
JeMeRappelle| 12.7.12 @ 1:45PM
A more relevant Kinks' song for our times is "Victoria." In its recounting of life in the British Empire under Queen Victoria, its lyrics state, "... the rich were so mean... Though I'm poor, I am free... "
That the rich are "mean" is certainly a widely-held belief today. As to being "poor" and "free," America will soon be impoverished and is no longer free.
Skippy| 12.7.12 @ 3:02PM
Try this one on for size.
It places Man in the proper perspective for The Season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyDKVO1LjxQ
markenoff| 12.7.12 @ 3:46PM
Jethro Tull a Christmas Song
Long ago in royal David's City
Stood a lonely cattle shed
Where a mother held her Baby
You'd do well to remember the things He later said
When you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties,
You'll just laugh when I tell you to take a running jump.
You're missing the point I'm sure does not need making
That Christmas spirit is not what you drink.
So how can you laugh when your own mother's hungry,
And how can you smile when the reasons for smiling are wrong?
And if I just messed up your thoughtless pleasures,
Remember, if you wish, this is just a Christmas song.
(Hey! Santa! Pass us that bottle, will you?)
pomdter| 12.7.12 @ 5:02PM
I've seen the Kinks in concert about 6 times, and to my disappointment, they never played this one. But I did get to hear "I'm an Apeman"....
topcat52| 12.7.12 @ 5:24PM
You are simply listening to the wrong rock stations.
jaytrain| 12.8.12 @ 9:04AM
Just to play along with the rest of the dyspepsia in these remarks , you might want to know how Davies assault case played out . Twice, as in two times , Davies shows up for the trial to put this thug away and twice the defense asks for and gets a continuance , meaning Davies has put himself transatlantic out for no effect . On the third trial date , no Davies, and buddabing the defense is tout pret , but no witness, no case and another person of colour perp is free to roam the streets and vote early and often for School Bus Ray and Barry O .Pass this along to our mutual friend , Quin Hillyer . It should warm the cuckholds of his Mississippi heart
C. S. P. Schofield| 12.8.12 @ 2:21PM
I must respectfully disagree with your characterization of "I Believe In Father Christmas" as "a Yuletide hymn for atheists". To my ears it draws a good distinction between childhood (when the Gospels are a "Fairy Story" and presents just appear) and adulthood (when what we get from God is mercy, and our earthly circumstances are ours to determine). Most importantly for me the lines
"'till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise"
are about the (well it was to ME anyway) glorious realization that WE are Santa Clause. I figured this out fairly early; my parents didn't talk about Santa as if presents came from him, but I took me a while to go from 'Mom and Dad give presents' to 'every present ever given at christmastime, all over the world, was given by one human to another out of (one hopes, anyway) love.'. I LOVED that aspect of Christmas. I still do. I get far more pleasure giving than I do getting (though a well thought out present for me still makes me very happy). And so I take quite seriously the lines;
"Hallelujah noel be it heaven or hell
The Christmas we get we deserve"
Frankly; I think atheists are too crabby and self-important to write something like that.
FrankBrunson | 12.9.12 @ 12:50AM
I was at a recent event and it literally stopped while Silent Night played. Why go looking for some song no one has ever heard of while giving lip-service to a classic, instead of simply giving the classic a well deserved post.
Appleby| 12.9.12 @ 8:28AM
This weekend I have a gift for our church collection, a gift for the Salvation Army Toy Mountain, a mighty gift bag for someone at the Welcome Table, our charity for the street folks (I always splash out on this one because these guys probably won't get anything else) and 6 lb. of books which are Christmas gifts for my 10 great-neices and great-nephews. None of this falls under the category of Gimmee -- these are all gifts I wish to give. But I do wonder how there can possibly be 150,000 members of TheMostVulnerableAmongUs, as the current label calls them, here in the GTA alone, who would need the largess of the Sally Ann alone. I suspect that at the end of the day, ThePoor will have a much better Christmas than I will.
Stilton A. Cheese| 12.9.12 @ 12:11PM
Seperated at Birth or was Irving Berlin Ray Davies Father? I'll leave it to you to decide.
Got no mansion
Got no yacht
Still I'm happy with what I got
I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night
I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night
Sunshine
Gives me a lovely day
Moonlight
Gives me the Milky Way ~ Irving Berlin
The tax man's taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon
I can't even sail my yacht
He's taken everything I've got
All I've got's this sunny afternoon ~ Ray Davies
Bill8472| 12.10.12 @ 11:21AM
Either that or Ray Davies had high standards when it came to stealing lyrics.
PCPSmokerII| 12.9.12 @ 8:54PM
Heard it on iTunes, and it stinks.
Vasu Murti | 12.13.12 @ 10:04PM
"That long-haired radical socialist Jew" (written and performed by Hugh Blumenfeld).
Well, Jesus was a homeless lad
With an unwed mother and an absent dad
And I really don't think he would have gotten that far
If Newt, Pat and Jesse had followed that star
So let's all sing out praises to
That long-haired radical socialist Jew
When Jesus taught the people he
Would never charge a tuition fee
He just took some loaves, took some bread
And made up free school lunches instead
So let's all sing out praises to
That long-haired radical socialist Jew
He healed the blind and made them see
He brought the lame folks to their feet
Rich and poor, any time, anywhere
Just pioneering that free health care
So let's all sing out praises to
That long-haired radical socialist Jew
Jesus lived in troubled times
The religious right was on the rise
Oh what could have saved him from his terrible fate?
Separation of church and state!
So let's all sing out praises to
That long-haired radical socialist Jew
Sometimes I fall into deep despair
When I hear those hypocrites on the air
But every Sunday gives me hope
When pastor, deacon, priest, and pope
Are all singing out their praises to
Some long-haired radical socialist Jew...