We have a few more weeks til Christmas. I’m looking forward to it. I hope all of you are doing well.
Father Christmas, give us some money
We’ll beat you up if you make us annoyed
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don’t mess around with those silly toys
This song always brings a smile to my face. Any Kinks Christmas song would have to be different…and this one is.
I’ve always liked this raw and rough Christmas song. A writer at the NME wrote, “Successful Xmas songs are more about mood than specifics, but as this is an anti-Christmas song, it’s fine.” This is the kind of song you would expect from Ray Davies. Anti-Christmas or not…it has become a popular classic Christmas song that gets airplay every year.
The single was released during the height of punk rock and certainly exudes a punk attitude. Dave Davies told ABC Radio that he “always thought The Ramones would do a great version of it. I don’t know why they didn’t do it.”… thinking about it…Dave was right…it would have fit them perfectly.
The song was released in 1977 with the B side Prince Of The Punks. The track was included on the Arista compilation Come Dancing with The Kinks and is also available as a bonus track on the CD reissue of the Kinks’ 1978 album Misfits.
In England, Father Christmas is the personification of Christmas, in the same way as Santa Claus is in the United States. Although the characters are now synonymous, historically Father Christmas and Santa Claus have separate entities, stemming from unrelated traditions.
Ray Davies: “When the record came out we were on tour with a very successful band at the time supporting them,” he recalled during an interview with Southern California radio station KSWD. “I went on dressed as Santa at the end of the show to do ‘Father Christmas.’ And the other band found it hard to follow us. The following night with the same band I went to run on but there was a bunch of heavies preventing me from running on stage. And I was protesting. But the people said, ‘The Kinks didn’t do an encore but Santa Claus was there and they were stopping him from going on stage.'”
Father Christmas
When I was small I believed in Santa Claus
Though I knew it was my dad
And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas
Open my presents and I’d be glad
But the last time I played Father Christmas
I stood outside a department store
A gang of kids came over and mugged me
And knocked my reindeer to the floor
They said
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don’t mess around with those silly toys
We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over
We want your bread so don’t make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
Don’t give my brother a Steve Austin outfit
Don’t give my sister a cuddly toy
We don’t want a jigsaw or monopoly money
We only want the real mccoy
Father Christmas, give us some money
We’ll beat you up if you make us annoyed
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don’t mess around with those silly toys
But give my daddy a job ’cause he needs one
He’s got lots of mouths to feed
But if you’ve got one I’ll have a machine gun
So I can scare all the kids on the street
Father Christmas, give us some money
We got no time for your silly toys
We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothin’
While you’re drinkin’ down your wine
Father Christmas, give us some money
We got no time for your silly toys
Father Christmas, please hand it over
We’ll beat you up so don’t make us annoyed
Father Christmas, give us some money
We got no time for your silly toys
We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over
We want your bread so don’t make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
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Playing the song now. It’s a great track …just plain fun!
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Yea this song I play everywhere…a little anti-cheer lol.
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Gotta love that tongue in cheek British humour!
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A great slice of “counter-programming” for the holidays!
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It’s a nice relief I agree.
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haha, yeah like ‘and that was half an hour of non-stop Christmas Music here at 98.3, with Mariah and Perry and the Carpenters in there. Now, providing the opposing opinion, here’s the Kinks!’ right there with the Pogues ‘Fairytale of New York’
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It is a nice break from the usual Christmas songs… a little reality check!
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This song rocks out. I never paid attention to the lyrics before, but it is very cool. I wonder what group the Kinks were supporting.
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The poor people… it’s nice to hear this anti Christmas song among the more traditional ones.
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I have never heard of The Poor People, but there was a band called The Poor, however the timeline doesn’t seem to fit. The Poor were an American rock band from Los Angeles, California who were active in the 1960s. Included in their roster were Randy Meisner, who would go on to achieve fame with the Eagles and Poco in the 1970s, as well as Allen Kemp and Pat Shanahan, who later joined New Riders of the Purple Sage.
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Makes a nice change from all the cloying Christmas overly jolly stuff that I hear oozing out of every Mall you enter. ‘Come, spend Christmas with us’ is the message, not ‘Come All Ye Faithful.’
Sorry, the Kinks and the Grinch are affecting my outlook again.
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I need this shot of reality at times… it’s probably more true than any other.
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It’s a great tune and a nice contrast to many other “modern Christmas songs” you hear everywhere during the holidays. I also agree this would have been great for the Ramones to cover. They probably would have sped it up to get it down to 2 minutes! 🙂
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Yea The Ramones would have done a good job and really missed an opportunity with this one.
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I like this kind of jolly fun for Christmas. Beats all of the toxic materialism. The FedEx, UPS, and amazon trucks are filling the streets like ants these days and the stores are empty 😦
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Deck the streets with delivery trucks, by golly?
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There’s something about this song that doesn’t hit me right. I think the guitars are too prominent. I love the wit and attitude, and Ray’s voice. It’s very ‘Kinks’, who I love. But this is all overshadowed by too loud guitars, imo. It’s sounds like a mess, quickly thrown together. It’s fingernails on the chalkboard bad to my ears. I think I’d like a remix. Keep the guitars, but balance them out with the vocals.
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It might be becasue of punks arrival at the time…that would be my only guess in the mix being different.
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After the Kinks get through with the jolly little elf, CB is going to take a round out of him.
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Tis the season to hunt the big guy down lol.
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Against popular thought but it’s time.
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I know how you feel!
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I get tired of jolly Christmas songs this time of year. The Kinks obviously shared this credo as well.
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I agree!
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My Spotify playlists save me at this time of year
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I used to always listen to this at Christmas time. It’s one of my favorite ones. I think my favorites are the Emerson Lake and Palmer one and the Eagles one. And Elvis Blue Christmas and Brenda Lee of course.
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I have a few I have on rotation every year….and this is one no doubt.
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Mannheim Steamroller’s my personal favorite.
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I liked Mannheim Steamroller too. I remember when there used to be just one Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album, and now there’s about 88,000
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