Sick of being assaulted by the usual onslaught of Christmas songs, Kevin Courtneycompiles an alternative festive CD
Everyone has their breaking point, the moment when Christmas and all its tack finally overwhelms you in an avalanche of fake snow and false cheer. For me, the moment came in the second week of November, when I walked into a branch of a well-known clothes chain, and heard Shakin' Stevens singing Merry Christmas Everyone. It was the yule log that broke the reindeer's back. I stormed up to the counter and expressed my disgust that, with Halloween barely over, they were already playing Christmas songs, and announced that I was taking my sock-buying business elsewhere (that'll really hit their profits).
I flounced out of the shop in a flurry of Christmas snow, and then realised how fruitless my protest had been. Every other shop in town would also be playing Christmas music - it's like the winter vomiting bug: once one person starts chundering, everybody else quickly joins in. What was I going to do - hide at home for the holiday season? Walk around Grafton Street without any socks and a sprig of parsley stuffed in my ears? There was only one thing for it: I would have to make my own Christmas compilation CD, containing nothing but credible songs, performed by the best indie and alternative artists around. I would then burn off a few dozen copies and hand one in to every shop in the city centre, in return for their worn-out copy of The Best Christmas . . . Ever!Consider it a festive amnesty of sorts, a way for shop-owners to avoid being splattered with machine-gun fire on Christmas Eve (believe me, it's coming to that).
MY BRIEF WAS clear: the songs had to be indie, Christmassy, not too mawkish, not too cheesy, but with just the right measure of childlike wonder; and they had to give me that warm, fuzzy, festive feeling I got when I first heard John & Yoko singing Happy Xmas (War is Over)back in 1973. (Since then, it's given me a very un-peace-like feeling.)
My CD would have to open like a Christmas cracker - with a bang. I needed a big, brassy anthem that would deliver a concentrated shot of Christmas cheer, one that featured sleigh bells, church bells, chestnuts, children's choir, peace, love, rock'n'roll, and a great chorus. The original blueprint would probably be Wizzard's I Wish it Could Be Christmas Every Day. Since then, many bands have tried to rearrange the usual Christmas song tropes to create their own definitive anthem - and failed. The Darkness released Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End),which featured most of the above, plus some rubbish, would-be-rude puns. The Camembert Quartet did a better job with the hilarious Everybody Knows it's Christmas, but alas, they didn't trouble the UK charts (come to think of it, neither did The Darkness after their Christmas song).
This year, an unlikely alliance of alt-rockers threw the ingredients into the cauldron and came up with Christmas Number One. The Black Arts feature members of Black Box Recorder and Art Brut; though the song is jolly, it contains a dark reminder that festive songs are not just for Christmas - they can stick around longer than plutonium, decaying your brain more with each passing year. The chances of it actually making Christmas number one are only marginally better than those of Malcolm Middleton's festive slice of existentialism, We're All Going to Die.
But the man who gets the mix just right is Crumlin man Thomas Walsh aka Pugwash. Tinsel & Marzipanis a glorious song that compresses all the Christmassy stuff into 3½ minutes of sparkling pop brilliance.
Now that we've got our opener, the next thing is to fill our CD with choice cuts from the rock'n'roll selection box. A good place to look is in the movie soundtrack section. The 2004 movie Christmas with the Kranksis pretty forgettable, but its soundtrack is a veritable treasure trove of cool yule tunes, including The Ramones' Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight),The Raveonettes' moody take on The Christmas Songand a dreamy version of White Christmasby Tina Sugandh. My favourite track here, though, is by some bunch called The Butties, who have rocked up the traditional carol Joy to the Worldin the style of The Beatles' Please Please Me. Fab.
Even the most cred band, who would normally die rather than compromise their muse, is tempted to try their hand at a Christmas song. Eels have one called Christmas is Going to the Dogs, while The Killers released A Great Big Sledas a download last year. Both fail to catch the Christmas spirit, however, but The Flaming Lips' A Change at Christmas (Say it Isn't So)neatly grabs that festive feeling and puts it in multi-coloured pill form.
Add that one to the tracklisting.
DIGGING EVEN DEEPER into our Santa sack, we uncover a compilation put out by We Love You records, entitled - naturally - We Love Yule. It features such glittering indie baubles as Winter Wonderlandby Bent, featuring our own lovely Cathy Davey, along with songs by Röyksopp, Mother and the Addicts, The Bees and I Am Kloot. The one that appeals to my inner Bob Cratchit, however, is Fakesensations' Nobody Gets What They Want (On Christmas Day).Amen to that. There's also a nice little instrumental by Norwegian loungecore band Remington Super 60, entitled Christmas Song for Melanie. That'll do nicely. The third volume of Music from the OC, inclusively entitled "Chrismukkah", has the lovely Just Like Christmasby Low, and a gentle, hopeful tune by Ron Sexsmith, entitled Maybe This Christmas.
All we need now is a big, spirit-raising song to climax our collection, and who better to supply the requisite swell than the Ghost of Indie Christmas himself, Sufjan Stevens. Stevens has recorded and released no less than five festive EPs, featuring a mix of carols, Christmas favourites and some of his own compositions. Last year, he put all five together in a limited edition box-set, and it's been re-released this year due to popular demand. There's some great stuff here, and Stevens approaches the holiday with respect, wide-eyed wonder and a soupcon of cynicism. And a banjo.
The booklet includes the lyrics and chords, so get out your guitar, gather round the yule log and sing along. There are the seasonal staples, such as Silent Night, We Three Kingsand Away in a Manger, but there are also some quirky Christmas tunes such as That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!, Get Behind Me, Santa!and Did I Make You Cry on Christmas Day? (Well, You Deserved It!).
My favourite of his own compositions is Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!,which nicely sets the scene for a normal suburban Christmas: "K-Mart is closed! So is the bakery! Everyone's home watching TV!" And my big, penultimate song is here too. In Stevens's hands, O Holy Nightis turned into something magical and marvellous. It begins with just him and his banjo, then explodes into a phantasmagoria of festive sounds and images that'll make your heart burst like an overfull sack of toys.
So, now that I've made my own Christmas CD, I'm ready to present it to Dublin's department store owners and finally stop the cavalry. On second thoughts, I won't bother - this is one selection box I'd like to keep to myself.
Courtney's crackers: cool yule sounds
1 Tinsel & Marzipan- Pugwash 2 Joy to the World- The Butties 3 The Christmas Song- The Raveonettes 4 Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!- Sufjan Stevens 5 Just Like Christmas -Low 6 Nobody Gets What They Want (On Christmas Day)- Fakesensations 7 Chrismas Song for Melanie- Remington Super 60 8 A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn't So)- Flaming Lips 9 White Christmas- Tina Sugandh 10 O Holy Night- Sufjan Stevens 11 Maybe This Christmas- Ron Sexsmith