Friday YouTube - Christmas Carols

Rock Chrstimas songs are an interesting phenomenon. There's so many of them, for one thing. Most are pretty second-rate. I love The Kinks' "Father Christmas," but I don't think anyone would rank it as one of their favorite Kinks songs, you know? But here's a couple exceptions.

First, "It's A Wonderful Life" by Fishbone. This really is one of my favorite Fishbone songs, which is saying a lot, because Fishbone is one of my very favorite bands. I guess it's not that directly a Christmas song--it's a song about the movie It's A Wonderful Life. It was originally released on an EP in 1987 with 4 songs, 3 of which were Christmas-themed. There was "Slick Nick, You Devil You," in which Angelo sang a poem about Santa robbing his house, a reggae song (probably their best straight reggae) called "Iration" that didn't have anything to do with Christmas, and a funky jam called "Just Call Me Scrooge."



Even better, here's Irish folk-punk band The Pogues with what might be their very best song, "A Fairytale of New York." In fact, this might be one of the greatest songs ever written. That line "I kept 'em with me babe" makes me tear up. According to one of the commenters on YouTube, this was a pretty big hit in Ireland and Britain, but certainly not over here. Came out the same year as the Fishbone tune.



And, what the hell, here's more Ramones.