An Alternative Christmas

Let's be honest: there's no statement more hypocritical and steeped in empty rhetoric than the cliché that we all become kinder as Christmas approaches. If anything, the opposite is true: the vultures circle even more relentlessly during the holidays. Probably, though, once Christmas Eve night finally arrives, even the most unconventional among us like to sit at home with the family by the fire, watch the snow fall, and play with the children who — lucky them — still feel Christmas with that sense of magic and mystery that we adults can no longer grasp. Sometimes you reach the morning of December 25th desperately trying to breathe in that special atmosphere which, for some reason, in some way, has faded — or maybe it simply never left, and it's you who has changed. Perhaps it's the fault of that phenomenon called "loss of innocence," whereby the charity drives that used to move you as a kid now irritate you, the sermons coming from the Lateran and the Quirinale you'd rather send back with a Molotov cocktail, and with all the Christmas trees lying around you could build a massive pagan bonfire straight out of "The Wicker Man". But where reality inevitably fails, music often succeeds. Our music. We all have a blues to cry out, as Perigeo remind us, and in the same way everyone has their own Christmas to get through: from the working-class one of the Kinks to the desolate one of Tom Waits, from the "cool" one of Eels to the enchanted one of Mogwai, from the mystical one of John Fahey to the atheist one of the Sonics, all the way to the blasphemous one of Fear.

There's something for every taste here, and enough to put together an imaginary compilation of exactly eighty minutes, spread across twenty-four tracks. It should have been twenty-five, but that would have been all too perfect, like one of those cloying films the TV networks force-feed us on a loop over the holidays. The last one, then, is the song that should be there but isn't — that something we've always been looking for and have always been missing, the lost piece that mockingly leaves the mosaic of happiness incomplete. So the twenty-fifth track will be that bonus track that might suddenly reconcile us with ourselves, with abandoned dreams or love left hanging. OndaRock's wish is that everyone finds their own missing song — whatever the genre, whatever the arrangement — at Christmas as on any other day of the year.

1. Kinks – Father Christmas

Any Christmas compilation that aspires to be "alternative" has to open with the Kinks' "Father Christmas". A band that, with "You Really Got Me", had already prefigured punk and maybe a dozen other genres besides, was hardly going to pass up the chance (in 1977, no less!) to deliver a different, rebellious take on Christmas. The chorus, propelled by energetic slashes of guitar, floors you from the first line: "Father Christmas give us some money/ Don't mess around with those silly toys". A horde of British working-class kids storms the department stores, demanding that whoever's playing Santa that year hand over not silly toys but hard cash and a job for their unemployed dads. Requests that, incidentally, couldn't be more topical. Santa Claus in the age of austerity.

2. Low – Just Like Christmas

Intimate and dreamlike, Low's music is particularly well-suited to the Christmas atmosphere. Aware of this quality in their own sound, the Duluth band decided in 1999 to try their hand at the classic Christmas album format. Sure, it's nothing on par with masterpieces like "Things We Lost In the Fire" and "Trust", but the opener "Just Like Christmas" is something that makes peace with the world. Following its joyful, folk-paced melody, it feels like running through an enchanted forest, past snowmen and hooded children. No doubt about it: if fairies exist, they have Mimi Parker's dreamy voice.

3. Bob Dylan – Must Be Santa

It's Christmas morning and you're five years old. Your parents are urging you to get out of bed and get ready, because it's time to go for lunch at grandpa Bob's. You get in the car, your father heads for "Highway 61"; grandpa lives just off that road, in a cozy little house built with a lifetime's savings. You reach the door and ring the bell. No one answers, but the door swings open, and there to greet you is a bunch of funny little elves with tambourines and accordions. They play and dance through the whole house, forming a conga line. You join in. The line climbs the stairs and reaches the first floor. There, dressed as Santa Claus, is him — grandpa Bob. He comes over gently, picks you up, and, with a kindly air, whispers in your ear: "Santa Claus really does exist, but you all just pretend not to believe it".

4. Pogues & Kirsty McColl – Fairytale Of New York

Guess when that lovable derelict Shane MacGowan was born? Yes, on Christmas Day. In 1957, to be precise. Unthinkable, then, that he never celebrated a Christmas. In his own way, of course. Probably hooked up on one side to a bottle of rum and on the other to a stereo blasting Celtic music at full volume. In his own way, together with his partner-in-crime Jem Finer, he surely told the strangest Christmas tale ever written. God, it takes some nerve to even call it a "tale"; it's more of an urban nightmare populated by down-and-outs and prostitutes, junkies and criminals, in which the song's protagonist loses his love and his dreams. Not every fairy tale has a happy ending.

5. Residents – Santa Dog '88

"Santa Dog" is the title of the first, legendary EP by those anonymous geniuses who go by the name Residents, whose cover featured the image of a dog dressed as Santa Claus. In 1978 the prolific Californian band went back to those tapes, releasing "Santa Dog '78" (still Christmas-themed on the cover, only this time with four monstrous Santas), before reshaping the material once again ten years later on the EP from which the version featured on our compilation is taken. Some claim the title is an anagram of "Satan Dog", but it certainly won't take an innocent urban legend to make this track unsettling. Just give this macabre nursery rhyme a listen, and it'll worm its way into your mind like an evil thought you'll never shake off.

6. Sonics – Don't Believe In Christmas

Even those madmen the Sonics had their share of bitter disappointments. The biggest of all came at Christmas 1965, the moment they realized Santa Claus never existed. It stung so badly that they cut a pounding rock'n'roll number, shot through with the lysergic jolts of an electric organ, to slap the world in the face and declare that, from that moment on, the Sonics would never believe in Christmas again. Too many times, after all, they'd stayed up till the small hours on Christmas Eve, waiting in vain for that fat guy dressed in red to pop out of the chimney. A more than understandable oversight, given the characters involved: would you ever sneak into the house, at night, of five wild men who sing "Strychnine is good"?

7. Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians Of British Empire – Father Christmas Is Dressed In Green

Author of Dadaist poetry, painter of neo-expressionist canvases, photographer, filmmaker and garage-punk musician. He may not excel at any single one of these pursuits, but you can't help respecting a man like Billy Childish, if only for that wild Yosemite Sam moustache. If he had a shotgun instead of a guitar, the two of them would be virtually identical — all the more so given that his instrument fires off some seriously loaded shots! So let this be a warning to anyone who still insists Santa's suit has always been red. On this point old Billy won't budge: "Father Christmas Is Dressed In Green".

8. Fear – Fuck Christmas

Unbelievers, foul-mouthed and iconoclastic; it would take entire crusading armies to convert punk warriors like Fear! Their Los Angeles is the same city that burns on the X's masterpiece album and bleeds, struck by Darby Crash's lethal scream, in the songs of the Germs. Their Christmas burns and bleeds too, devastated by the murderous ferocity with which Lee Ving and co. tear into the phony, teeth-baring do-gooderism trotted out for the occasion. Because Fear, after all, are well used to knocking teeth out. In this case it takes them less than a minute — forty-six seconds flat. Just enough time to build a languid mood and then wreck it, thirty seconds later, with a barrage of repeated "fuck"s. Not a song — an assault.

9. Yo La Tengo – Rock’n’Roll Santa

The most alternative greetings of all come from Yo La Tengo, the band that, perhaps more than any other, has turned the "alternative" label into a genre that's undefinable yet instantly recognizable, with its own peculiar aesthetic balanced between ethereal melody and furious guitar assaults. True to themselves right to the end, the Hoboken, New Jersey outfit don't back down even at Christmas: "Rock'n'Roll Santa" opens as raw as the Stooges' "Search And Destroy", then quotes the "Jingle Bells" theme, before finally launching into a joyous melody you could never get tired of. Call it happiness. Contagious happiness.

10. Vaselines – Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam

"Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam" belongs to the regrettably slim discography of the Vaselines, the extraordinary Scottish pop band who, in the late Eighties, recorded a handful of songs as gorgeous as they were overlooked. Blessed be Kurt Cobain, then, who with his Nirvana fished three tracks out of their songbook, including this parody of "I'll Be A Sunbeam", an old Christian nursery rhyme for children. Don't be fooled, though, by the viola's angelic sway or the honeyed voices of Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee: sometimes the distance between a smile and a smirk is razor-thin.

11. J.D. McDonald – Boogaloo Santa Claus

With J.D. McDonald, the compilation opens its funk-soul interlude. Dressed as Santa Claus - or rather as a Naughty Santa, judging by the lecherous timbre of his voice, somewhere between James Brown and Screamin' Jay Hawkins - everyone dances the boogaloo, a mixed-blood dance born of a night of passion between R&B and mambo. Actually, to be honest, and with all due respect to euphemism, the word "sex" captures it better. Unbridled, wild sex.

12. Electric Jungle – Funky Funky Christmas

After J.D. McDonald's boogaloo, we keep shaking our hips blissfully with Electric Jungle and their Christmas funk. It starts with a downright insane bass groove; then come pleasure-drenched drum rolls, an orgasmic saxophone and feline flourishes of electric piano. Trust us, there's no better antidote to the winter freeze. Forget the snow: with Electric Jungle, it's going to be a hot, steamy Christmas.

13. Lcd Soundsytem – Oh You, Christmas Blues

He may not be George Clinton, but James Murphy certainly has no shortage of groove - a groove that's arguably not all that Black and a bit too white, via Gang Of Four, let's say, but it works just fine anyway. It's no coincidence that this Christmas blues is steeped in geometric funk-punk right down to the bone. You won't find it on any of the three studio albums the New York band has released so far, but rather on the soundtrack of a Ben Stiller comedy released in theaters a couple of years ago, known in Italy under the title "Lo stravagante mondo di Greenberg".

14. Mogwai – Christmas Song

Mogwai's music - delicate, melancholic and fairy-tale-like - evokes Christmas even without any explicit references in the titles. Still, on more than one occasion, the standard-bearers of British post-rock have chosen to celebrate the holiday with compositions written specifically for the occasion. First and foremost "Christmas Steps" - released in 1999 on "Come On Die Young" - but also this "Christmas Song", dating from the same year and included on an untitled EP. There's little to say about it, since the title and its dreamy build already say it all: piano chimes and tender guitar arpeggios lead down to the seaside, where you could watch the waves rise and die for hours, like shooting stars on Christmas night.

15. Flaming Lips – Christmas At The Zoo

At Christmas, everyone's busy doing good for the poor, the orphaned and the sick, but the animals - who thinks of the animals? Rest easy, fellow animal lovers, that cuddly little Wayne Coyne has got it covered! He's planned everything: on Christmas Eve he'll sneak into the city zoo to free the peacocks, llamas, seals, snakes, orangutans, kangaroos and elephants. And if, once the cages are open, they refuse to come out, as happens in the song, he'll charm them with a hypnotic guitar riff and lead them out like a modern-day Pied Piper. The Piper At The Gates Of The Zoo.

16. Pearl Jam – Let Me Sleep (It’s Christmas Time)

"Let Me Sleep" is one of the lost Pearl Jam songs rediscovered on the b-sides collection "Lost Dogs", released in 2003. Maybe it's about the nostalgia of childhood, of a time when Christmas seemed magical and the winds smelled like flowers, whereas now everything feels weary and listless. More likely, though, it voices the Christmas thoughts of some poor soul who, alone, barefoot and with nowhere to go, is caught in the grip of a merciless cold. Better to sleep, then, since there's nothing to celebrate.

17. Belle and Sebastian – O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Inspired by a sacred Latin hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” tells of the coming of the Messiah, named by the prophet Isaiah as Emmanuel, meaning “God is with us”. Belle and Sebastian's version keeps that sacred aura intact, opening solemnly like a liturgical procession for acoustic guitar before dissolving into a folk with an apocalyptic flavour – "apocalyptic" here in its etymological sense, that of the Revelation of a universal truth.

18. Eels – Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas

“Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas” is Mr. E's Christmas gift: a wonderful burst of positive energy and good vibes, the kind we badly need at certain moments – especially as the holidays draw near. And it's all the more meaningful coming from someone for whom life, musical talent aside, has hardly been kind, taking first his father (when E. was eighteen) and then his sister to suicide (an event that would inspire that immense masterpiece on the inescapability of grief titled “Electro-shock Blues”). Only those who have known the darkest despair can truly know the meaning of joy. Mark Oliver Everett has taught the world that through his songs. 

19. John Fahey – Joy To The World

Another traditional religious hymn, another mystical piece; and it could hardly be otherwise, considering that the fingers plucking the guitar strings – producing the usual enveloping harmonies – belong to John Fahey, undisputed master of fingerpicking. And they are, as always, caresses of the soul, warm gusts of wind that intoxicate the heart, snow petals sent down by God to redeem man from his greatest sin: ignoring the beauty that surrounds him. The Lord's mercy is boundless, and so is John Fahey's music. Forever and ever.

20. Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

Sure, "Brain Drain" may not be the Ramones' finest album, but there are bands that would sell their soul to have a "Pet Sematary" or a Christmas punk anthem of the calibre of "Merry Christmas" in their catalogue, whose only flaw is that it lacks the outrageous charge one would expect from a punk hymn. Then again, the Ramones were neither the Dead Boys nor the Sex Pistols, and beneath their firecracker riffs always beat the heart of good boys who, given the choice, preferred making love to making war. All the more so at Christmas, when "it's not the time for breaking other people's hearts". And if they say so, you'd better believe it.

21. Tom Waits – Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

The Christmas card Charley received comes from the outskirts of Minneapolis. It's written by a junkie hooker he'd met on Ninth Street. She says she's pregnant, that she's quit drugs and whiskey, and that she's married a man who has promised to raise the baby even though he isn't the biological father. It would be a fine story of redemption, if things were really that way. In reality there is no husband, and she desperately needs money to pay for a lawyer who'll get her out of prison on parole.  Just in time for Valentine's Day, she adds, leaving open the possibility of piecing back together a broken love. A hope worth more than a thousand happy endings.

22. Morphine – Sexy Christmas Baby Mine

To recover from the urban squalor recounted by Tom Waits, what you'd really need is a liberating melody like "Twist And Shout" to belt out at the top of your lungs, but since the best the Beatles catalogue has to offer on the Christmas theme is the less-than-stellar "Christmas Time Is Here Again", we'd rather sink even deeper into the sordid with the depraved voice of Mark Sandman, who tells us, backed by an equally dissolute saxophone, about his "Sexy Christmas Baby Mine".

23. Sufjan Stevens – That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!

Sufjan Stevens is a singer-songwriter beyond any category; eccentric, schizophrenic, often excessive, as when in 2006 he decided to release more than two hours of Christmas music in the sprawling “Songs For Christmas”, a box set of five EPs split between covers and original songs. Among the latter, the standout is the melancholy poetic sketch for banjo and acoustic guitar titled, not without irony, “That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!”. It's not entirely clear what it's about, but that hardly matters, because that faint, whispered melody contains the whole contradictory poetic universe stirred up by Christmas.

24. Galaxie 500 – Listen, The Snow Is Falling

It isn't strictly a Christmas song, but there was no way to close this imaginary compilation without a track dedicated to snow, the weather phenomenon most closely tied to Christmas through suggestion and association. And who better to write a song about snow than the band whose music was beautifully described as “the sound of snow falling”? Actually the song is by Yoko Ono, but it fits the aesthetic of Galaxie 500 like a glove. In the celestial harmonies of the intro you can almost really hear it, the snow falling, blanketing the world – from New York to London, from Tokyo to Paris – in a pure, immaculate lightness. Just an instant before it all melts away in the blazing storm of guitars, bringing to an end a visionary, psychedelic snow dream.

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