‘Don’t Believe in Christmas’: The Sonics’ ultimate anti-Christmas song
The holidays might be a season of glad tidings and good cheer for most, but not for everyone. You wouldn’t have much to shout about if you ended up on the naughty list, either. No one wants to wake up to a measly lump of coal at the foot of their bed. Santa only brings some people ‘The Christmas Blues’, but when the big day came in 1964, he did something even worse to members of The Sonics.
He didn’t bring them anything at all, and in doing so, he stole their Christmas spirit forever. As everybody now knows, thanks to the wisdom of Buddy the Elf, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing loud for all to hear. But to get their own back at jolly Saint Nick in 1965, The Sonics took a different approach. They weren’t interested in spreading good cheer at all, and in fact, they had quite the opposite in mind entirely.
With a rapid-fire staccato vocal delivery and a melody which sounds like it owes more than a little bit to Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues‘ – released in the same year – their track ‘Don’t Believe in Christmas’ is a raucous racket of anti-Christmas sentiment. Blasting through on a bed of machine-gun fire drums, reedy organ sounds, rhythm guitar and vocal harmonies, the song is over before it’s begun at a brisk 1:50, but the band have got their message across loud and clear.
One of the very first garage rock bands, The Sonics were a group driven by distorted guitars, raw aggressive vocals, and wild energy and ‘Don’t Believe in Christmas’ is absolutely no different. The driving beats, fuzzy guitar riffs and snarling vocals give the raw and almost animalistic feeling to the track, while rough production and an uncompromising tempo are perfectly consistent with the spirit of DIY-ethos typical of garage rock, distinguishing it from the more glossy holiday recordings of that period.
Recorded for the Etiquette label’s 1965 album Merry Christmas, ‘Don’t Believe in Christmas’ was also released as a split single with The Wailers’ ‘Christmas Spirit’. Although the two songs don’t have too much in common, they both sound heavily inspired by Dylan; both feature an organ, and neither one sounds much like a Christmas song at a glance.
In fact, ‘Don’t Believe in Christmas’ doesn’t have too much in common with many other Christmas songs at all. There are only a handful of other tracks which would make such an appropriate pick for any Scrooge singing karaoke at the office Christmas party, although in selections like Kate Nash’s ‘I Hate You This Christmas’, Miles Davis’ ‘Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)’ and Weird Al Yankovic’s ‘The Night Santa Went Crazy’, the choice of genres is at least as varied as the more traditional Christmas repertoire.
The Sonics contributed three further songs to the Merry Christmas compilation in 1965: the blistering rocker ‘Santa Claus’, a novelty number called ‘The Village Idiot (Jingle Bells)’ and a send-up of The Drifters’ ‘On Broadway’ titled ‘It’s Christmas’. ‘Don’t Believe In Christmas’ is by far the best of the lot, but it probably didn’t do them much favours in getting back on the nice list in 1966.
The Sonics are one of those bands oft-lauded as originating both garage rock and proto-punk, leaving legions of acts in their wake from punk onwards to grunge. ‘Don’t Believe in Christmas’ serves as a testament to how they could take even an untouched tradition like Christmas and insert their own brand of rebelliousness into it. If you are looking for a loud, irreverent twist to add to any holiday compilation, this cut delivers in spades.
