Eric Idle Wonders Why His R-Rated Christmas Song Isn’t Doing Better on Spotify
It’s that special time of year when holiday music gets played 24/7, to the joy of Christmas fanatics, and the existential horror of every single person working in the customer service industry.
But while we’ll no doubt be hearing a lot of Mariah Carey, Bing Crosby and (shudder) Jimmy Fallon this year, one name that hasn’t become synonymous with holiday music is Eric Idle.
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The Monty Python star recently alluded to this fact on social media, bemoaning that Spotify has seen a spike in streams for Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” but not his own seasonal track. Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that Idle’s holiday song features the less than savory title: “Fuck Christmas.”
You see, unlike other classic Yuletide tunes, which generally celebrate the spirit of the season, Idle’s song is nearly two full minutes of vitriolic Christmas hate, mostly just putting the word “fuck” in front of cherished holiday staples (like “Santa” and “turkey”) and containing lines like: “Go tell the elves to fuck themselves, it’s Christmastime again.”
The song was part of Idle’s performance at Brian Cox and Robin Ince’s “Christmas Compendium of Reason” in 2014. Yes, that means that it’s the 10-year anniversary of “Fuck Christmas.”
While it hasn’t caught on like, say, “Jingle Bells” or “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” Idle has brought up “Fuck Christmas” on a few occasions — such as the time that he suggested performing a duet with former/future first lady Melania Trump, who had just been quoted as saying, “Who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration?”
While the song is clearly a joke, Idle does have a genuinely good reason to hate Christmas: His father miraculously survived World War II, only to tragically die on Christmas Eve while hitchhiking home.
As for “Fuck Christmas,” it may not be as popular as McCartney’s syrupy holiday anthem on Spotify, but at least listening to it doesn’t make you want to bludgeon yourself unconscious with the Christmas turkey. And Idle’s song is arguably lyrically cleverer than the ex-Beatle’s track, which feels like it was written in the recording studio men’s room 30 minutes before the session.
And Idle’s song continues in the tradition of other, more downbeat Christmas songs, like “Blue Christmas” and “Christmas Blues.” Had Elvis Presley and Dean Martin been allowed to swear in songs back in their day, they definitely would have swapped out references to the color blue for F-bombs.