Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop 25 Christmas Songs: #1 - Harvey Danger, “Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (Sometimes)”

It's the holiday season, which means Christmas music. Lots and lots of Christmas music, most of which was written before the people listening to it were even alive. While "Jingle Bells" and "We Three Kings" are great, and resilient, we're devoting this year to finding the best Christmas song written since 1989. We continue today with #1, the best Christmas song of the last 25 years, by Harvey Danger.

#1: Harvey Danger, "Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (Sometimes)" (1998)

If you're reading this on Christmas, you're probably gathered around a tree somewhere. Maybe there's snow on the ground, and the scent of fresh cinnamon rolls cooling on the kitchen counter. You've probably opened presents and shredded a bale's-worth of wrapping paper and settled into the afterglow that only comes on holiday mornings when all the stores are closed.

Maybe you're at work, manning a ticket counter at a ramshackle movie theatre, or grabbing the holiday shift at the all-night convenience store out by the highway, or sewing up someone who took a drunken Christmas Eve header through an apartment window. If you're doing that last one, probably stop reading.

Maybe you don't have much to celebrate this year, or maybe you list count of the blessings accrued during another spin around the sun. Maybe you don't celebrate Christmas at all. Maybe you just like Harvey Danger, or independent radio, or me. I don't know. 

(Maybe you're reading months in the future, killing time on some future April morning because it's raining and you didn't want to take your lunch break outside. Again, hard to say.)

Whenever you see this, though: I know the world seems pretty fucked sometimes, and that answers are hard to come by. I know that the holidays are usually more stressful than they're worth, and that a part of you would rather just not bother. My hope for all of you, wherever and whenever you're reading this, is that you find something in your lives that tips the balance in favor of the festive. Whether it's a song or a person or a particularly delicious butter cookie, I hope we can all find something to leave us at 51% happy come Christmas next year.

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you in 2015.

P.S. - Listen to the Long Winters' version of this song, too. It's mad good.

Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop 25 Christmas Songs: #2 - The Ramones, “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)”

It's the holiday season, which means Christmas music. Lots and lots of Christmas music, most of which was written before the people listening to it were even alive. While "Jingle Bells" and "We Three Kings" are great, and resilient, we're devoting this year to finding the best Christmas song written since 1989. We continue today with #2, and a bittersweet holiday refrain from the Ramones.

#2: The Ramones, "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" (1989)

The Ramones don't feel like a band that should have a Christmas song. Even though they were always on the sentimental side of the punk catalogue, such a naked display of gee-whiz cheeriness just didn't jibe. However, it's hard to argue that "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" isn't one of the band's best latter-day singles, and one of the best Christmas tunes of its era. Released on 1989's Brain Drain, the song captures a plea for smooth relations made during the time of year when the combination of stress and mulled wine makes that almost impossible. It's a message that works perfectly on its own, but gains a deeper level of bittersweetness when considered alongside the band's own struggles. By 1989, the Ramones were falling apart. The band's relationship with Sire Records has soured (Brain Drain would be their last album for the label) and, after years of tension, founding bassist Dee Dee Ramone had one foot out the door. The band that was once so close that members pretended to be brothers was limping into its third decade desperate to recapture the magic. Just as it's hard to dismiss the power of "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)", it's also hard not to hear it as a manifestation of the band's own turmoil. In 2014, we know how the story ends, but for those two minutes, they might be able to convince us otherwise.