Have Yourself A Bitter Little Christmas

Track #7 on His ND Xmas is David Fords's "Have Yourself A Bitter Little Christmas".

This song, more than any others, capsulates the frustration with the holiday season that I was trying to capture in this compilation. It's also the only song on the mix that has bad words. Those two things seem to go hand in hand.

So I'm leaving you on Christmas day
In truth I think we never liked each other anyway
But I don't care what all the people say
I say peace and goodwill starts with getting the hell out of here alive

It's featured on the compilation It's Not Like Christmas
(and playable here).

Dead By Christmas

Track #6 on His ND Xmas is "(I Wanna Be) Dead By Christmas" by Clint Coker.

With this song, the title really says it all. I found out about it during the annual holiday music rundown at mistletunes.com, and was intrigued by the cover and title.

And the song itself does not disappoint. It's a singalong rant by a cranky 'ol redneck who doesn't like mistletoe, deck the halls, or noel, and wants to be dead by Christmas, dead by Christmas, dead by Christmas, or at least by New Year's Eve. To me, it sounds like what might happen if Gil Ray ever recorded a Christmas song!

Speaking of Christmas tunes by people I (we) know, there's a new holiday entry at The Doubtful Palace called "Linus and Lucifer". Guaraldi meets Gang Green (for alliteration's sake, are there any satanic death metal bands with names that start with G?). It dropped too late for my mix, but would have fit the theme perfectly.

Chiron Beta Prime

Track #5 on His ND Xmas is Jonathan Coulton's "Chiron Beta Prime". This song was a request of sorts, carried over from last year.



This song turns the whole holiday letter tradition inside out, in an annual holiday letter by the Andersons, who have been banished to an asteroid by the robot council, but it still hasn't undermined their holiday cheer. Instead of paraphrasing Jonathan's lyrics, I should probably just quote them directly.

This year has been a little crazy for the Andersons
You may recall we had some trouble last year
The Robot Council had us banished to an asteroid
That hasn't undermined our holiday cheer
And we know it's almost Christmas
By the marks we make on the wall
That's our favorite time of year

Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime
Where we're working in a mine
For our robot overlords
Did I say "overlords"? I meant "protectors"
Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime


This weekend is the final opportunity to download my Christmas mix, so be sure to grab it while it's still available. The links are somewhere down there, and when it's gone, it's really gone!

O! Santa

Track #4 on His ND Xmas is "O! Santa" by Chatham County Line, from Yep Roc's Oh Santa! holiday compilation.

I guess it could even be called the "title track" of the album, even though the song and album have different punctuation. I've checked the song title on the internet, and the correct title really is "O! Santa", as in capital-O, exclamation point space Santa. There are a few Christmas carols ("O Little Town of Bethlehem", "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "O Come O Come Emmanuel" come to mind) that start with a single "O", which I think is an alternate for "Oh!". So this song means something like "Oh! it's Santa".

The band Chatham County Line is a folk, bluegrass ensemble that doesn't use amplification or microphones (kind of like Asylum Street Spankers), but they aren't complete bluegrass purists since their latest album was produced by Chris Stamey, and one of their first hits on youtube is this bluegrassified cover of "I Got You (I Feel Good)". And the next is a Wilco cover.

They don't have any performances of "O! Santa" on youtube, but the Oh Santa is available on emusic and amazon and all the usual places, as are all four of their albums. They're from Raleigh NC but Chatham County is in Southeast GA -- I don't know what's up with that?

Christmas Is Coming Soon

The third track on His ND Xmas is "Christmas Is Coming Soon" by these guys, who call themselves Blitzen Trapper.



I still haven't caught the buzz on experimental folk, or freak-folk, or whatever they call the Blitzen Trapper, Fleet Foxes indie subgenre, but I have a soft spot for any band that name themselves after one of Santa's reindeer, especially if they put a Christmas song on one of their regular albums.

"Christmas is Coming Soon" is from BT's self-titled debut which came out in 2003, but was reissued a couple of years later. It's a very cool song, that references both Steve McQueen and Donkey Kong, and it's available for a limited time as a free download from amazon.com

Blitzen Trapper - Christmas Is Coming Soon
(mp3 from Music Under Fire)

All I Want

The second track on my 2008 holiday mix is "All I That Want" by the Weepies.



I discovered this song when it was featured in a J.C. Penney ad last year, and found it by googling the lyrics. The other material by the Weepies is a little too cute and cuddly for me, but this tune is all that I want in a Christmas song.

The full moon dips its golden spoon
I wait on clip-clops, deer might fly
Why not? I met you

The Weepies also had a song in an Old Navy ad last year, so they seem to be the go-to band for commercials these days.   If you're going to sell out to the man, really sell out to The Man!

Depressed Christmas

The first track on my 2008/09 holiday mix is Culturcide's "Depressed Christmas", which was the b-side of their Christmas classic "Santa Claus Was My Lover".

It's not as inspired as that song, but just as weird, with sad lyrics spoken over an instrumental version of "White Christmas". "I'm having a depressed Christmas, just like the one I had last year. Where treetops glisten, as I listen, to the last Christmas song I'll ever hear". It goes in a similar vein for the entire duration of the instrumental "WC", but I only included the first 45 seconds on my mix.

The entire "song" is downloadable from WFMU's "Beware of the Blog", if this link is still active. But 45 seconds is more than enough to get the gist of the song.

Culturcide - Depressed Christmas ( from WFMU)