5 Songs Holiday Edition Dec. 22, 2023
I've never gotten around to writing a book on Christmas records, but here are five short takes on what I had in mind
The Monkees – “Unwrap You at Christmas” 2018 from Christmas Party. Andy Partridge of XTC fame had written one masterpiece of a holiday song back in the 80s, “Thanks for Christmas.” And he had written an excellent song, “You Bring the Summer” for the Monkees first of their final reunion record, Good Times. Mickey Dolenz has been one of the greatest singers in rock since their TV show debuted in 1966. Of course, this is a fantastic record. The trope of wanting a particular lover for Christmas has been overdone, of course, but the joy of this record is not in the words but in the music. It’s a delightful melody which both harkens back to XTC’s glory days and the even older innocence of early 60s pop music. There’s also an homage to the Phil Spector Wall of Sound in the production and arrangement. The record puts me in a warm and fuzzy state every time I hear it.
Rough Shop – “Santa’s Last Stop” 2009 from Just Because It Was Christmas. This St. Louis band owns the holiday in my home town, where they have done annual Christmas shows for most of the last 19 years. (There is no video of just this song, so I’m sharing a video of an entire show from just a few weeks back - I haven’t watched the whole thing yet so I can only assume this song is in it.) In addition to covering classic songs, they’ve written a couple dozen or so terrific originals, and this one is from the first of their two holiday albums. “Santa’s Last Stop” is written and performed entirely by guitarist Andy Ploof, who sings in a weary but satisfied tone accompanied by his own melancholy seventh chords on acoustic guitar. He imagines how tired Santa Claus must be as he reaches the end of his annual trip around the world, as he grabs the last presents from his bag, as he tastes the final milk and cookies of the evening. The song has a sweetness to it at the same time that it winks at the impossibility of the event. “Let’s go little Rudolph,” he sings. “The best night of the year.”
Julian Casablancas – “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” 2009 single. Twenty-three years ago, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch that I have never tired of watching. Horatio Sanz sings and plays a guitar-like instrument I can’t identify. Chris Kattan holds a keyboard while turning his head left and right; Jimmy Fallon fingers said keyboard causing it to repeat a chord until he hits another note (and he starts the wrong one once). And Tracy Morgan stands to the right of Kattan, his face a complete blank, and performs this immeasurably silly semi-serious dance. It’s like ten-year-olds performing a serious song, but because these guys are in their 20s, they make me laugh every time I think of it. The song is ridiculously simple. Then, in 2009, Julian Casablancas recorded a rocked-up version of this ditty, and it turns out to be my all-time favorite Strokes-related performance. “I don’t care what the people say, Christmas time is here / I don’t care what anyone says, Christmas is full of cheer.” It’s like the mother of straw man arguments! With a driving drumbeat (and bells chiming), pulsing bass, throbbing guitar, and synths, Casablancas delivers this song with all the energy and inspiration of the New York punks that made him want to be a rock’n’roll singer in the first place.
The Ramones – “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight” 1987 single and also from the 1989 album Brain Drain. The first five Ramones albums were packed full of songs that have remained in heavy rotation inside every aging punk rocker’s head for decades. The next nine albums, while always retaining enough energy and excitement to keep us pogoing, have maybe a handful of timeless classics between them. This tossed off Christmas song is one of them. Throwing a handful of Christmas standbys – Rudolph, the Night Before Christmas, and the dichotomy between the holiday festivity and complexity in a relationhip - up in the air and seeing what lands, this turns out to be one last explosion of anthemic dumb/smart melodic and heavy Ramones mania. (Is it a coincidence that this was on the last album to include Dee Dee?) Joey Ramone was a master at mixing absurdity with heart-tugging emotional resonance. He really, really doesn’t want to fight tonight, just experience that joyful pleasure he had as a child dreaming of his own leather-clad sugar plums after a hard day of snowball fights.
Bruce Springsteen – “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” 1981 single with many reissues and compilation appearances since. This was recorded live in December, 1975, with Springsteen at the height of his Born to Run success. Using the Crystals version of this song as a springboard, Bruce and the E Street Band play on the mythology already built up around the Boss. At that time, Springsteen was known for his storytelling in between songs. The opening of this performance, with jingle bells and Roy Bittan’s repetitive piano figures as Bruce intones, “It’s all cold down along the beach, and the wind’s whipping down the boardwalk,” seems as though he’s about to tell some poignant winter’s tale. But then, he asks, “Hey, band, what time is it?” Soon, we realize it’s Christmas time, and that means he can sing one of the first songs any American child of his or many other generations ever learned. He presses Clarence Clemons into Santa Claus duty – his stentorian rumbling of “You better be good for goodness’ sake” brings a smile to Springsteen’s voice. It’s a classic E Street performance, and it has deservedly become one of the most familiar renditions of this song.