At this time of year, it’s practically impossible to avoid the endless cacophony of Ye Olde Yuletide Hits. You know the ones. It was the same during Christmas 1977, the usual old “oh no not Slade/Wizard/Bing again” feeling in the pit of your little Punk stomach. Of course, back then, we never imagined for a moment that 41 years later… we’d still be ducking and diving in a bid to avoid exactly the same records.
So what did punk bring to the musical Christmas Party? Initially nothing, because Christmas just wasn’t very Punk Rock, it was like a big jumble of everything we hated; from the forced family gatherings to the feeling that the world had just shut down completely and may never get back up.
In 1980, Siouxsie and the Banshees appeared above the Yuletide ramparts with their version of the traditional French Christmas song “Il est né le Divin Enfant”, which is worth watching if only to see Robert Smith’s industrial sized cymbals and the suspense as to whether he will ever get to play them.
Further investigation reveals that The Dickies offered up a drunken sprawl of “Slient Night”, The Damned released a single called “There Ain’t no Sanity Claus”, and although it has a picture of Santa on the cover it’s not exactly Christmassy, and SLF laboriously growled through “White Christmas”. But fear not, if you’re still determined to punk rock around the Christmas tree, look no further than everyone’s favourite leather clad, three chord wonders, The Ramones original take on Christmas it might even be….just what you always wanted!