My Top Ten Christmas Songs

OK Let's Get This Thing Over

Ho³! Everyone seems to be indulging this humbug a little early this year, but as XKCD shows (click through for full details), at least in America, and subjectively here in the UK too, there appears to be a huge cultural bias towards 40s and 50s Christmas songs. For once, I won't be straining to reach as far back in time as my braces will permit, as I own up to some personal favourites in the genre.



10. Mike Oldfield, who could never be bothered waiting around for everyone else to learn their parts, started the trend of playing everything yerself. This is from 1975, although originally from the middle ages:



9. Not strictly a Christmas song, more of a fine study in adolescent rivalry and frustration, slapped on to the B-side of 1986's Trumpton Riots with the word Christmas gratuitously grafted into the title: these are the peerless Half Man Half Biscuit...



8. Justin Hawkins pouted perfectly in 2003: Now how the hell am I gonna make it into the new year?



7. Another non-Christmas song, Joni Mitchell's River just happened to be set at Christmas time in 1971, on a rather melancholy variation of Jingle Bells...



6. This kazoo-festooned KT Tunstall cover of Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas In Hawaii) lit up 2007, but originally written by Robert Alex Anderson in 1949 and appearing on Bing Crosby's White Christmas album, it's the only of our ten falling within the XKCD boom years:



5. Greg Lake, replete with Troika (from Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé, 1934) protested the commercialization of Christmas 1975...



4. John Lennon would have shown that Lake guy a thing or two about protest in 1971...



3. Kirsty, we will never forget you... with The Pogues, perennially since 1987:



2. A prog masterwork from 1976, Ring Out Solstice Bells can be found on The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, alongside such yuletide favourites as A Christmas Song and Another Christmas Song...



1. Topping my festive selection: 1981 had the coolest Christmas song ever!



Please don't mention The Spice Girls. Have a happy holiday season, everyone.