As if there were any other way to end this thingie--the best Christmas song of all time, courtesy of iconic Irish folk punks the Pogues and the late, great Kirsty MacColl. Perhaps the only Christmas song to use the word "faggot," and in an oddly inoffensive way. "I could have been someone," "Well, so could anyone." Too true.




I missed a couple days last weekend, so some bonus Christmas tunes are after the jump!
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From a latter-day Ramones work--1989's Brain Drain. Great stuff, especially the skits in the beginning and the end. Nope, those aren't lame at all.

Squeeze was one of the earliest bands I was introduced to as a young Albert--my siblings seemingly played Singles--45's and Under on a constant loop--and I still have a special spot in my heart for them. Songs like "Black Coffee in Bed," "Pulling Mussles from the Shell" and "Cool for Cats" were ahead of their time, and still sound great today.

They released a Christmas single back in 1979, rather plainly titled "Christmas Day." It wasn't much of a success, and is ultimately definitely one of their lesser works, but hey, it's about Christmas and it beats the Sixpence None the Richer version of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." As a bonus, this homemade YouTube video is full of goofy religious imagery!

As we all (should) know by now, there's a lot more to Aimee Mann than "Voices Carry." She's released six solo albums, including this year's @#%&*! Smilers. She also just seems pretty cool; she was in The Big Lebowski, an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer back in 2002 and wrote a song specifically for Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!. She's released a handful of Christmas tunes, like this one, from 2005's The Forgotten Arm--here's her playing it at the El Rey.

Tonight is the annual "Vandals Christmas Formal" at the House of Blues in Anaheim, and we talked earlier this week about No Doubt getting back together in 2009, so what better OCriffic song for today than No Doubt's cover of Vandals Christmas tune "Oi to the World"? None more better.

Unfortunately, all the videos on YouTube have "embedding disabled by request" (the Internet's becoming a real police state) so check it out here.

Oh Sufjan, is there anything you can't do? Write albums about all 50 states (eventually), get mentioned by Snow Patrol and release lots and lots of Christmas music. This is from 2003's Ding! Dong!: Songs for Christimas, Vol. III.




Yes, he's wearing wings. What of it?

No one said that Christmas songs had to be tasteful. Well, at least he has an excuse in case you don't end up getting what you want...

From the late Tiny Tim in 1985, back when apparently people thought AIDS would only slow you down for about a year.

The venerable "A Charlie Brown Christmas" airs 8 tonight on ABC, and of course we all know and love the Vince Guraldi score. This video interprets things a little differently thanks to "Perfect Night for a Hanging" by Christian thrash metal band Tourniquet.

Continuing our mini-theme this weekend of iconic singer/songwriters, let's turn to Bob Dylan. To his credit, he hasn't released any cheesy Christmas tunes in his near 50-year career, though the holiday comes up in tunes like "Arthur McBride" and both Christmas and Santa are mentioned in "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie."

But don't think that makes Bobby D some kind of scrooge. Two years ago, he recited "A Visit from St. Nicholas"--the poem of disputer authorship more commonly known by opening line "'Twas The Night Before Christmas"-- on his XM Radio show Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. As you might guess, it's neat, kind of weird and somewhat creepy. Instead of dreaming of seeing St. Augustine, we're spotting St. Nick. On Lily! On Rosemary! On the Jack of Hearts! Here it is.