The Saddest Christmas Song Was Sung By Someone Who Never Heard The Smiths
We hope everyone’s enjoying a happy holiday…but HT Grinch Chuck Myers does not. He’s kinda hoping someone falls down and sprains an ankle today. I seen ’em.
I’m not a fan of Christmas. Sure, I like the pretty lights and the attractive women in Santa outfits, but seeing yard after yard filled with glowing plastic manger scenes doesn’t fill my heart with joy. Hell, I’m not even a Christian and I find plastic mangers to be somewhat blasphemous. Maybe I can find an inflatable Lao Tzu to stick in my front yard.
Anyway. Given my tendencies towards Scroogely behavior, I like to spend the holidays surrounded by depressing music. “Fairy Tale of New York” doesn’t usually make it onto my mix CDs, because it’s just too darned happy. Yeah, I can conjure up some bitter sadness if I think of poor Kirsty MacColl getting mowed down by an asshole in a boat as she saved her son, but that’s not really specific to Christmas.
No, the songs that bring a smile to my withered lips are far bleaker than anything a drunk Pogue can conjure. “Lonely Christmas Eve” by Ben Folds is a step in the right direction, but the music isn’t very sulk-worthy. Folds’ ditty about a lubed-up Santa getting stuck in the chimney (“Bizarre Christmas Incident”) puts the “ahhhh” in my Bahhhh Humbug, but he really gets it right on “Brick,” a timeless carol about a yuletide abortion.
Mew’s Christmas rape story, “She Came Home for Christmas,” is a mainstay, even if it is overwrought and schmaltzy. Tom Waits’ “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” could be titled “Christmas Carol from the Crack Addict Hookers Who Work the Corner By My House,” and Meryn Cadell’s “Cat Carol” still makes me misty-eyed even though the neighborhood stray is living in my basement and pissing on the childhood memories I have stored down there.
These are all great songs to play as I sit in a dark room with a plate of nachos and a worn-out copy of “It’s a Wonderful Life” that plays soundlessly on my vintage VCR. But last year, I discovered* what might be the saddest Christmas song of all. It’s a song that you may have heard, a little tune called “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
No, I’m not shitting you. This is some bleak stuff. Read on to find out why…
