Trends & Inspiration

A Comprehensive Christmas Playlist: Classic and Alternative Xmas Songs

There is no perfect Christmas playlist: your Aunt can’t stand Slade and your little sister is sick of hearing ‘Mary’s Boy Child’; your partner is full of mainstream Christmas cheer and all you want this year is to be alternative, mopey and reflective. Welcome to the IWOOT list of Christmas songs that is equal parts mirth and misery, punk and pop, and, hopefully, wholly representative of the Christmas spirit!

‘The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth’

David: What’s happened to Hudson?
Bing: I guess he’s changing.
David: Yeah, he does that a lot doesn’t he. Oh, I’m David Bowie. I live down the road.
Classic.

Video source: YouTube

‘Lonely This Christmas’

‘Try to imagine a house that’s not a home
Try to imagine a Christmas all alone
That’s where I’ll be since you left me’

Video source: YouTube

‘Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)’

‘I love you and you love me
And that’s the way it’s got to be
I loved you from the start
‘Cause Christmas ain’t the time
for breaking each other’s hearts’

Video source: YouTube

‘Won’t Be Home For Christmas’

‘It’s Christmas time again
It’s time to be nice to the people you can’t stand all year
I’m growing tired of all this Christmas cheer’

Video source: YouTube

‘Christmas Will Break Your Heart’

‘Christmas will shove you down
So just lay back in the snow
That quite wind won’t wake
What inside you has grown cold
[…]
But still I’m coming home to you’

Video source: YouTube

‘Driving Home for Christmas’

‘Driving home for Christmas
With a thousand memories
I take a look at the driver next to me
He’s just the same
Just the same’

Video source: YouTube

‘Stop the Cavalry’

The ultimate anti-(Cold) War Christmas lyric:
‘I have had to fight
Almost every night
Down throughout these centuries
That is when I say
Oh yes, yet again
Can you stop the cavalry?
Mary Bradley waits at home
In the nuclear fall-out zone
Wish I could be dancing now
In the arms of the girl I love’

Video source: YouTube

‘Christmas in Hollis’

‘It was December 24th on Hollis Ave in the dark
When I see a man chilling with his dog in the park
I approached very slowly with my heart full of fear
Looked at his dog, oh my god, an ill reindeer!’

Video source: YouTube

‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’

‘You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear
Voices singing, “Let’s be jolly,
Deck the halls with boughs of holly”,
Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree,
Have a happy holiday’

Video source: YouTube

‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’

”cause I just want you here tonight
Holding on to me so tight
What more can I do?
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you’

Video source: YouTube

‘Last Christmas’

‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special’

Video source: YouTube

‘Fairytale of New York’

‘You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on the corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing ‘Galway Bay’
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day’

Video source: YouTube

Banner image source: via pixabay.com



Michael Adamson

Michael Adamson

Writer

Michael is a life-long fan of all things related to DC Comics, Marvel, and Star Wars. When he's not reading, you can find him playing football or running.