10 hard-rocking Christmas songs, from AC/DC to Christopher Lee

It’s that time again. Mariah Carey has been defrosted. Michael Bublé’s accountant is buying another yacht. Christmas music is firmly back at the summit of the charts like the 900-pound Swarovski star atop the Rockefeller Center tree.

It’s easy (and fun) to be cynical about Christmas music. Sure, there are a few notable classics of the genre: Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl’s modern hymn to redemption “Fairytale of New York”, James Brown taking “Santa Claus… Straight to the Ghetto”, Darlene Love urging her baby to “Please Come Home”, but there’s also a whole lot of saccharine schmaltz clogging up the airwaves that will rot your teeth faster than a diet of candy canes.

It’s best, for example, to avoid Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe” at any time of year, and the less said about Bon Jovi’s “Back Door Santa” the better.

This sort of cheese doesn’t have to define the season, because the truth is even leather-clad guitar gods aren’t above writing a letter to Santa (or should that be Satan?).

This is proved by the handful of rock’n’roll stars who have managed to squeeze their songs into the mainstream Christmas music canon, including Bruce Springsteen’s glorious take on “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”, The Kinks’ sneering “Father Christmas” and even The Darkness with their innuendo-laden “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)”.

They’re not the only songs capable of shaking the snow from the trees. Here are 10 more hard-rocking festive treats to liven up your Christmas playlists this year:

1. AC/DC, ‘Mistress for Christmas’ (1990)

In Slade’s perennial favorite “Merry Xmas Everybody”, Noddy Holder sings: “Does your granny always tell ya / That the old songs are the best? / Then she’s up and rock n’ rollin’ with the rest!” It’s a lovely image, but even granny might draw the line at AC/DC’s sleazy “Mistress for Christmas”, which includes Brian Johnson singing over a distorted guitar riff: “I like female form in minimum dress / Money to spend with a capital ‘S’.”

What casual listeners might miss is that the intended target of the song’s pointed satire was a New York real estate baron who would go on to have a career in politics.

“I think the funniest song on this album is ‘Mistress for Christmas.’ That song’s about Donald Trump,” revealed guitarist Angus Young in a 1991 interview with Guitar World. Trump’s highly publicized affair with Marla Maples had led to the end of his first marriage the same year the song was released. As Young said: “He was big news at the time, so we thought we’d have a bit of fun and humor with it.”

2. Christopher Lee, ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ (2012)

Christopher Lee, who died in 2015 at the age of 93, was a larger-than-life character. He was an RAF officer and a real-life spy during World War II before becoming a movie star in the 1950s in Hammer Horror’s Dracula. To James Bond fans he was The Man With The Golden Gun, in the Stars Wars universe he was Count Dooku while in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy he was the villainous Saruman.

On top of all that, Lee also began a later-in-life music career. He had shown off his deep baritone in the 1973 horror classic The Wicker Man, but it wasn’t until he was 90 in 2012 that he released the festive EP A Heavy Metal Christmas.

The stand-out track is his booming version of “The Little Drummer Boy”. A follow-up, A Heavy Metal Christmas Too, produced “Jingle Hell”, a version of “Jingle Bells” that made Lee, at 91 years and 6 months, the oldest person ever to reach the Top 20 on the Billboard charts.

3. The Greedies, ‘A Merry Jingle’ (1979)

The Greedies were a short-lived supergroup with an impressive pedigree: Phil Lynott, Scott Gorham, and Brian Downey of Thin Lizzy joined by Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols.

They released just one single, 1979’s “A Merry Jingle”, a highly enjoyable mash-up of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bells” propelled by Lynott’s winning delivery and given a punk edge by Jones and Cook. A Christmas cash-in it may have been (their original name was The Greedy B*****ds), but in this case we’ll allow it.

4. Hanoi Rocks, ‘Dead By X-Mas’ (1982)

The Finnish band Hanoi Rocks formed in 1979 and are considered progenitors of glam rock, cited as a significant influence by the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Poison.

Their December 1981 single “Dead By X-Mas” is an upbeat, albeit nihilistic, take on a Christmas tune, and one that proved tragically prescient. A few weeks before Christmas 1984, the band were partying with Mötley Crüe in California when they ran out of beer. Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil and Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle (born Nicholas Dingley) were driving to a nearby liquor store when Neil crashed into another car. Razzle was killed instantly in the collision.

5. Keith Richards, ‘Run Rudolph Run’ (1978)

Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run”, which dates back to 1958, is arguably the prototypical rock’n’roll Christmas song. It has been covered many times by artists including Lemmy, Cher and the Foo Fighters, but never played better than this version by Rolling Stones guitarist (and Berry devotee) Keith Richards.

“To me, it’s the hippest Christmas song that there is,” Richards said last year. “I mean once again Chuck Berry, beautiful lyrics, a beautiful, joyful feeling about it, and it tells a story short and snappy. What a great track. The sound of it is amazing. I was always like, ‘I’ve got to have a bash at that…’ Actually it was just done out of sheer fun.”

6. Ramones, ‘Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)’ (1987)

Ramones were well past their late-Seventies punk prime by the time they recorded “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)” in 1987, but there’s still plenty to love about this exhilarating festive anthem. The song, later included on their 1989 album Brain Drain, combines a classic Ramones chord progression with a plaintive plea for seasonal rapprochement.

Nobody but Joey Ramone could have written a punk song with lines as innocent as: “All the children are tucked in their beds / Sugarplum fairies dancing in their heads”.

The singer-songwriter was famously at odds with guitarist Johnny Ramone, who had married Joey’s former girlfriend Linda in 1984, and the song’s open desire for togetherness at the holidays surely hit close to home. “Christmas ain’t the time for breaking each other’s hearts,” indeed.

7. Rob Halford, ‘We Three Kings’ (2009)

With his snowy white beard, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Rob Halford is a noted Christmas enjoyer. The Judas Priest singer has released a couple of Christmas-themed albums, 2009’s Halford III: Winter Songs and 2019’s Celestial, and has regularly appeared in social media videos to deliver season’s greetings decked out in a Santa hat and his own band’s ugly Christmas sweater.

Of all his festive fare, his version of “We Three Kings” might just be the most thrilling. When American clergyman John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote the Christmas carol back in 1857, it’s doubtful he ever imagined it being performed in such blistering fashion, complete with high-speed guitar solos, a relentless drum beat and Halford’s own inimitable vocals.

8. Spinal Tap, ‘Christmas With The Devil’ (1992)

Years before the Jack Black movie Dear Santa imagined a dyslexic child misspelling “Santa” and getting a Satanic surprise, Spinal Tap were spending their own “Christmas With The Devil”. This song was recorded for the spoof band’s 1992 album Break Like The Wind, and like much of their musical output it’s a parody that manages to work perfectly well on its own terms.

With Eagles member Timothy B. Schmit providing backing vocals, the Tap offer up an unforgettable image of Christmas in the underworld: “The elves are dressed in leather / And the angels are in chains… The sugar plums are rancid / And the stockings are in flames.”

9. Twisted Sister, ‘Heavy Metal Christmas’ (2006)

In 2006, New Jersey heavy metallers Twisted Sister gave us the gift of a whole album of Christmas tunes, A Twisted Christmas. The band have a long history of being inspired by festive music: their 1984 smash hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was directly inspired by imagining Slade doing “O Come All Ye Faithful”.

On A Twisted Christmas they perform “O Come All Ye Faithful” in the style of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” but even better is “Heavy Metal Christmas”, their take on “The Twelve Days of Christmas” where instead of a partridge in a pear tree the recurring gift is a “tattoo of Ozzy”.

10. The Who, ‘Christmas’ (1969)

On the original LP version of The Who’s ambitious rock opera Tommy, “Christmas” opened the second of the album’s four sides. The song, set on Christmas morning, captures the band in their full pomp, with Keith Moon providing dramatic drum fills and singer Roger Daltrey showing off his vocal range.

It’s also that rare Christmas song that displays a real philosophical depth, as songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend uses the occasion to ponder the religious fate of his “deaf, dumb and blind” protagonist in the chorus: “And Tommy doesn’t know what day it is / He doesn’t know who Jesus was, or what praying is / How can he be saved / From the eternal grave?”