Christmas is often marketed as a time of pure joy. But not everyone is feeling holly jolly during the holiday season. For some, the holidays bring up memories of lost loved ones, family woes, dire finances, and the list goes on. While several holiday classics dominate the radio every year, there are dark Christmas songs that are operating under the radar with stories of death, despair, and twisted versions of Santa Claus. Check some of them out below.
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5. “Kidnap the Sandy Claws” from The Nightmare Before Christmas
With a title like The Nightmare Before Christmas, it’s likely that what’s to come is anti-Christmas. That rings true for the soundtrack to this cult classic film by Tim Burton. Equal parts humorous and sinister, the lyrics to “Kidnap the Sandy Claws” find the minions of villain Oogie Boogie vowing to destroy Santa Claus with torturous acts ranging from submerging him in boiling hot water to throwing him in an isolation box for 90 years. Kidnap the Sandy Claws, beat him with a stick / Lock him up for ninety years, see what makes him tick / Kidnap the Sandy Claws, chop him into bits / Mr. Oogie Boogie is sure to get his kicks, the animated characters chant in this number that’s anything but merry and bright.
4. “I Want to Come Home For Christmas” by Marvin Gaye
After “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “White Christmas” set the stage for Christmas songs revolving around war, Marvin Gaye took it to the next level with “I Want to Come Home For Christmas.” This song is entrenched in despair as Gaye sings of a prisoner of war who dreams of the sound of jingle bells and a sparkling Christmas tree as he’s trapped in a prison cell. But I can’t promise my eyes this sight / Unless they stop the fight / Cause I’m a prisoner of war / Lying here in my cell / Hoping my family is well / Wish they wouldn’t worry so much about me / Just try to get us home / In time for the Christmas tree, Gaye wails in this rather depressing tale.
3. “Another Lonely Christmas” by Prince
While Prince is known for his innovative music and soul-stirring lyrics, it should be no surprise that he could pen a dark Christmas song with the best of them. He proves that with “Another Lonely Christmas,” which is about a man who spends his holidays mourning the loss of the love of his life. After he looks back on the fond memories and true love between them, it takes a dark turn when he reveals that she died on Christmas Day and that he’s spent every Christmas since drinking himself into oblivion. Baby you promised me you’d never leave / Then you died on the twenty-fifth day of December…Your father said it was pneumonia / Your mother said it was strep / But the doctor said you were dead and I / I say it’s senseless, Prince croons.
[RELATED: Top 10 Holiday Songs That Will Hit You in the Feels]
2. “Faith in Santa” by Hermann Lammers Meyer
Now we are really getting into the dark side of Christmas. “Faith in Santa” follows the heartwrenching story of a young boy named Billy who’s been neglected and abused by his family and ultimately dies in Santa’s arms. Each line is more depressing than the next as the young boy tells Santa about how his father is in prison and he and his mother live with an abusive alcoholic. As if it couldn’t get any worse, the boy then starts talking about wanting to go to heaven and then slowly passes away on Santa’s lap, making for a truly devastating Christmas song.
1. “Coventry Carol“
No Christmas carol can hold a candle to the darkness that is “Coventry Carol.” This English carol dates back to 1534 and stems from the Biblical story of the Massacre of the Innocents, wherein King Herod ordered all of the male babies in Bethlehem to be killed. The song serves as a lullaby sung by the mothers of the ill-fated babies who are about to be murdered in this atrocious act with such haunting lyrics as: That woe is me, poor child, for thee / And ever mourn and may / For thy parting neither say nor sing / Bye bye, lully, lullay. It’s easily the darkest Christmas carol of all time.
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