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Bummed Out ChristmasBummed Out Christmas! (1989) is a wonderful and harrowing concept album about the dark side of the holidays. Suicides, after all, spike during the holiday season. Rhino Records, our host for this unhappy half-hour, collects 12 yuletide laments - some tragic, some comic - that document divorce, depression, death, larceny, murder, incarceration, several cases of drunk driving, and "Viet Cong all around me." The weather outside is, indeed, frightful.

Despite some reservations (detailed below), I chose Bummed Out Christmas! as one of my Top 20 Albums. Why? Certainly, it's an entertaining and revealing concept, but the songs back it up with verve and variety. These tales of woe come in all flavors: country, rock, soul, blues, gospel, and ragtime. In fact, nearly half of Bummed Out Christmas! ended up in my Top 100 Songs. These include garage rockers by the Sonics and the Wailers, who express explicit white outrage at the happiest of seasons. Meanwhile, Ron Holden and the Youngsters express black outrage in the only way permissible at the time - humor and self-deprecation. My remaining Top 100 track - the Staple Singers' "Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas?" - expresses the black experience differently, reflecting 10 years of progress towards racial justice, as well as the Staples' religious perspective.

What remains is nearly as impressive. Johnny & Jon take us to Vietnam to experience the war through the eyes of two grunts (read more). George Jones narrates a desolate "Lonely Christmas Call" from the road. Clyde Lasley (and Santa Claus) take us on a tour through every brand of whiskey behind the bar. And, the Everly Brothers present us with what may well be the most depressing Christmas song in existence, "Christmas Eve Can Kill You." As one reviewer warned, "Do not listen to it with a loaded gun in the house."

The only thing wrong with Bummed Out Christmas! is that it could have been even better. Rhino Records was a fairly young label when they released Bummed Out Christmas! They hadn't yet fully embraced the compact disc, which was well on its way to dominating music sales. As a result, Bummed Out Christmas! suffers in comparison to what Rhino would soon unleash on holiday music lovers like us. For about a decade at the height of the CD era, we got marvelous compilations documenting holiday music in a dizzying variety of genres: country, jazz, blues, doo wop, reggae, punk, new wave, and swing (read more). Most of them included at least 18 songs, but Bummed Out Christmas! runs just 12 tracks totaling 34 minutes - roughly half the capacity of a compact disc. And, it's minimally annotated, at least compared to future Rhino releases.

On their compilations of historic music, Rhino had a propensity for throwing in a few newer tracks, apparently trying to prove their relevance to the modern music scene. Usually, all this does is dilute the high quality of what remains. On Bummed Out Christmas! we are treated to nine tracks spanning 1954 to 1972, then three from 1984 to 1987. Happily, one of those - "Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit" by the Christmas Jug Band (a Dan Hicks side project) - is pretty great. Doug Legacy's "Christmas In Prison" is fine, too, but it's a cover of a song that belongs to its author, John Prine. Sherwin Linton's "Santa Got A DWI," meanwhile, is just plain silly, but all three fit the "bummed out" theme like a glove.

Altogether, Bummed Out Christmas! tells a vivid, harrowing story, albeit one usually relegated to B-movie houses and dusty jukeboxes. The holiday season is fraught with emotional peril, and tidings of joy do not comfort the lonely, desperate, and depressed. But, good songs and good humor can help us resist the darkness, to not go gentle into that good night.

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • Christmas Eve Can Kill You (Everly Brothers, 1972)
  • Christmas In Jail (The Youngsters, 1956) Top 100 Song
  • Christmas In Vietnam (Johnny & Jon, 1966)
  • Christmas Spirit?? (Wailers) Top 100 Song [close]
    There's never been a more sour Christmas single than the Sonics/Wailers split 45, "Don't Believe In Christmas" b/w "Christmas Spirit??" The a-side featured the Sonics railing against the entire institution of Christmas, largely for personal reasons. The Wailers' flip side attacks the holiday for what it reveals about America - our commercialism, our shallowness, our lack of self-awareness. Told in a droll, Dylanesque twang, "Christmas Spirit??" is so broad, so bitter, so altogether over-the-top that it just may have been intended as parody. Or, it may have been an earnest attempt at relevance by an aging party band ("Tall Cool One," 1959). Either way, it works for me - bah humbug, babe. (Both sides of this infamous single are included on Etiquette's Merry Christmas From The Sonics, Wailers, Galaxies, a compilation of garage bands from the Pacific northwest, as well as Rhino's Bummed Out Christmas.)
  • Don't Believe In Christmas (Sonics) Top 100 Song [close]
    Almost since the dawn of recorded Christmas music, a favorite topic of songwriters has been how much Christmas sucks for them. Never mind that it's the "most wonderful time of the year" - dude, I am bummed! Here, the Sonics' ferocious lead singer, Gerry Roslie, expresses his disbelief in the "Happy Holiday" and his displeasure with Santa Claus, declaiming "I didn't get nothin' last year!" Not only did the "fat boy" not show, but Roslie got shot down at the dance - "you jerk," sneers his date, "mistletoe doesn't work!" "Don't Believe In Christmas" was featured on Merry Christmas From The Sonics, Wailers, Galaxies, a compilation of garage bands from the Pacific northwest; the LP also includes another of my Top 100 picks, the Wailer's "Christmas Spirit??" Both songs are also on Rhino's Bummed Out Christmas.
  • Lonely Christmas Call (George Jones, 1962)
  • Santa Came Home Drunk (Clyde Lasley & The Cadillac Baby, 1960)
  • Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit (Christmas Jug Band, 1987)
  • Who Said There Ain't No Santa Claus (Ron Holden, 1960) Top 100 Song
  • Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas? (Staple Singers, 1970) Top 100 Song

Further ListeningFurther Listening

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