This is a song that i think is about war. It’s also about governments pushing down protests with weapons. 

 the power dons that five sided fist-a-gon                  (the leaders of the Pentagon, the ones who think out all wars)

The second riff makes the meaning of the song way more clear:

Weapons not food not clothes not shoes         (The government money is used for weapons)

 I walk the corner to
the rubble that used to be a library                       (War destroys all)

rally round the family
pocket full of shells  (All tax money is used for wrong cases. So basically, every tax payer helps war)

Here is the U.K Christmas number one for last year, 2009. Rage against the machine. Killing in the name.

Not exactly a Christmas type song, but they got their point across.

Christmas number one for 2008: Alexandra Burke with Hallelujah. Yes she was an X Factor winner.

Christmas number one in 2007: Leon Jackson. When you believe. Another X Factor winner.

Christmas no. one for 2006: Leona Lewis. A moment like this.

Christmas number one for 2005: Shayne Ward.  That’s my goal.

Number one for Christmas 2004: Band Aid 20. Do they know it’s Christmas.

Christmas number one for 2003: Michael Andrews & Gary Jules. Mad world.

Christmas no. one for 2002: Girls Aloud. Sound of the underground.

Christmas number one for 2001: Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman. Somethin’ Stupid.

Number one for Christmas 2000: Bob the builder. Can we fix it?

So out of 10 years worth of Christmas number ones, we only have two actual Christmas type songs. Do they know it’s Christmas time and Hallelujah. The rest mostly consists of talent contest winners apart from the odd few.

There are of course other Christmas songs that have been in the charts over the last ten years, however due to X factor winners dominating the top spot, those songs sometimes get forgotten.

1. Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name

Originally released in the early 1990’s, this song hit the Christmas number one spot in the UK charts in 2009 as a protest against the X Factor. Someone started a Facebook page to get this song to number one instead of the X Factor winner song – it worked!

2. Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)

What has this song got to do with Christmas? Nothing much apart from the fact it was the Christmas number one in the UK in 1979. This was the only number one hit in the UK that Pink Floyd had.

3. Bob The Builder – Can We Fix It

Christmas is all about the kids – or something like that. And in the year 2000 enough kids pestered their parents enough to buy this song to take it to number one in the UK charts and at Christmas no less!

4. Mr Blobby – Mr Blobby

The first non human to make it to number one in the UK – for what that is worth – enough people bought this nonsensical nonsense to make it the Christmas number one in the UK in 1993. I blame Noel Edmonds.

5. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody

Which song has been number one at Christmas time not once but twice in the UK. Yep, Bohemian Rhapsody – Christmas number one in 1975 and again in 1991. And not a mention of Christmas in it at all.

6. Scaffold – Lilly The Pink

All the way back to the Christmas number one of 1968 for this song here by Scaffold, who included Paul McCartney’s brother and Roger McGough. It should be noted that Christmas songs did seem to pass the 1960’s by; they were popular enough in the 1950’s and in the 70’s and beyond but not in the 60’s!

7. Benny Hill – Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)

Comedian Benny Hill had something of an unexpected hit with this one – no one could have predicted how high it would get in the chart. It was the Christmas number one in 1971.

8. Human League – Don’t You Want Me

Perhaps the music buying public just don’t want to see Christmas type songs reach the Christmas number one spot. Like this one for example – nothing to do with Christmas but a Christmas number one nonetheless (in 1981).

9. Michael Jackson – Earth Song

A haunting song for sure but is this the kind of thing that is needed at Christmas. This Michael Jackson song managed to be the Christmas number one in 1995.

10. Jackie Wilson – Reet Petite

This song first hit the charts in 1957 and finally made it to the number one spot just in time for Christmas in 1986 – yep 29 years! 

Well one thing we can be sure of is that the best Christmas song is not a recent one, in fact I would be lould name 5 well known Christmas songs in the past 10 years, I certainatley can not. I think the majority of the blame for this has to be assigned to X factor. The show is as many people know designed to finish in time for Christmas, which as im sure many of you are aware led to a counter attack by all those who hate the show, this allowed rage agaisnt the machine to claim the number 1 Christamas spot. But the influenc of X factor no doubt acts as a strong discincentive for any artists thinking about releasing a Christamas single, given the popularity that their compettition is sure to start off with.

Another reason why artists are unwilling to release new Christmas is because of the calibre a existing Christmas songs, as I mentioned before we all ahve our household favourites, could any new Christmas songs, cause you to put away the Christmas CDs, I doubt it.

Now onto the best Christmas song for me it can only be one, White Christmas. That song never fails to put a smile on my face and nothing gets me in the mood for Christmas more than that song 

Rage Against the Machine, being who they are, heard about this law and have decided to protest it the only way they know how, by throwing a concert in Los Angeles. It will be their first concert in their home town in 10 years.

The concert will be taking place July 23rd, this year. The concert money will go to aiding organizations fighting against the SB 1070 law. RATM will be joined by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.

Tickets will go on sale July 19 at exactly 10 am. They will be available at Livenation.com. It’s going to be a historic one!

Since 2005, this title has fallen into the hands of who ever was lucky enough (depending on your perception of it) to win the most recent series of ITV’s The X Factor. Every year, Simon Cowell cunningly manages to schedule his guaranteed money-making scheme in time for Christmas and thus, since 2005, the Christmas single has become an inevitability, and not the thrilling uncertainty it once was.

However, Christmas 2009 saw that all change and I think it quite appropriate that as we approach the second decade of the 21st century, the battle was ultimately won using the means of the plethora of modern technology that is now seemingly right at our fingertips. The origin of the uprising came from the globally accessible social networking phenomenon, Facebook. Tracy Morter and her husband Jon, a couple from Essex, initialised a group willing the British public to purchase Rage Against The Machine’s 1992 single Killing In The Name Of in a bid to overthrow the dominance of Simon Cowell’s empire. Whilst they freely admit that it may have started off as a ’silly idea’, it managed to gather more than 1.5 million fans and many more people will surely have been made aware due to word of mouth and such like, not to mention the media coverage it received once it was realised that this optimistic upheaval could, in fact, be achievable.

The other main testament to modern technology is that of music downloads. Being originally released 17 years ago, one would struggle to find a copy of the Killing In The Name Of in any high street stores and subsequently, all of the 500,000 copies that were purchased were done so online. What is also interesting about this is that it is the first single ever to have achieved a number one spot solely from the use of downloads. Even with the advantage of being available digitally and in shops, X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s version of The Climb ultimately fell behind, although somewhat admirably ended up only 50,000 copies behind the victors. At this point, I feel it appropriate to add that this was never intended to specifically target Joe McElderry, nor indeed any of the other contestants, but rather the commercialised world of pop music itself and, for many people, Simon Cowell’s seemingly relentless attempt at making as much money as possible. For the latter, however, this didn’t quite work out seeing as Rage Against The Machine are tied to Sony BMG, the same record label as Joe McElderry – Merry Christmas Mr Cowell. For fans of rock music (and I am using the term rock in a very broad sense here), pop music is generally viewed as an unauthentic, manufactured process for the sole purpose of making money whereas rock is seen as a more emotive, artistic form of music. In terms of public consumption, rock music has, as a general rule, tended to fall behind pop music. Pop music tends not only to be appealing to a wider range of audience but the way in which it is marketed means that it will almost always come out on top. If any rock musicians advertise themselves in the same way that pop singers do when promoting a new album or single, they tend to lose their credibility and authenticity in the world of rock – as stated above, rock music should supposedly be performed from within and for the purpose of demonstrating one’s uniqueness rather than for financial gain. The fact that a track that is so far distanced from pop music has managed to take the top stop over the generic standardised competition, means that this triumph runs deeper for rock fans that merely trying to overthrow Simon Cowell.

Image via Wikipedia

So what does this public statement ultimately mean? Is the future of Christmas singles no now longer a question of merely which X Factor contestant is going to sing it? Unfortunately, I see this as a mere glitch in the current running format but I do hope to be wrong. Not just because I have anything against The X Factor, Simon Cowell or commercialised Pop music, but because it has been refreshing to have seen something else coming with a fighting chance instead of the result being a mere formality.

My ultimate hope is that next year, and for many years to come, to competition will come from something that deserves to be Christmas number one and not just for the sake of proving a point. The key word there is Christmas. Gone are the days of 1984, when Band Aid took the crown with Do They Know It’s Christmas and gone are the days when Slade were victorious with Merry Xmas Everybody in 1973. True classics that are still immensely popular every single yuletide that each year brings – and more importantly, they are festive! Whilst these two examples are obviously exclusive to Christmas, I would be just as happy to see a repeat of 2000 when Bob The Builder’s Can We Fix It? came out on top or even 1993, with Mr Blobby’s originally titled Mr Blobby. Christmas time is magical, fun and enchanting and should be treated as such. Originality or musical credibility doesn’t have to be crucial – if it’s fun and people enjoy singing along to it then that truly deserves to be number one at Christmas (and the sillier it is, the better in my opinion!). Let all other songs and artists have the rest of the year to have top spot and let the true spirit of Christmas shine through (I personally am still bitter at the 2003 title which, instead of going to The Darkness with Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End), went to Michael Andrews & Gary Jules’ cover of Mad World, a sombre number which include the lyrics ‘the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had’ – hardly the most joyous song to hear on Christmas morn!).

Cover of Merry Xmas Everybody

The British people who purchased Killing In The Name Of should be applauded. While I always held out hope, I never truly believed this could be done and whilst neck and neck at times, the revolution succeeded and this is truly a triumph. It may be small and it may not be repeated, but then again it does not need to be. This single act and unification of thousands of people will go into popular culture folklore for ever.

According to Tillich, man has created a problem for himself that originated from the spirit of the industry. In theory, “man is supposed to be the master of his world and of himself” (46). In practice, however, man has traveled beyond this objective and instead has made himself a mere “object among objects” in his world. As a result, man has reached a stage of “emptiness and meaninglessness, of dehumanization and estrangement” (46) leading to his eventual downfall. In short, the spirit of the industry has carried man to where he wanted to end, and then beyond into a territory of things. Things that, because of the industrial society, are over-productive. For example, what started as a crude bomb developed into an effective tool in war. If it had ended there, the world would be so different today. But the encouraging shove of the industrial spirit and movement has carried this bomb past a realistic stage, to a point where one nuclear bomb can be the downfall of entire mass-populated cities. Man’s infatuation with the industrial spirit has lead, and will continue to lead, to man’s downfall.

Tillich also believes that in order to regain meaning in life and become individuals once again, man must rely on the creativity of the courageous. Man must turn to those that turn culture into tangible representations. Man must turn to artists, authors, architectures, musicians, and the like. These select, though courageous enough to show man what is wrong, do not necessarily have all of the answers to correct the problems. They merely state the problem and man must rely on himself to seek the answers.

One such courageous soul is Robert Frost, who wrote the poem “Out, Out-.” Frost uses the example of a young boy to point out to the audience a flaw in man’s reliance on the industrial society. Though the description of the nameless young child is vaguely described to the reader, one’s heart still aches for the child who lost his life to a saw while doing his daily task. Robert Frost uses this scenario to detail how man’s reliance on technology for a livelihood results in death. In the case of the young child, the death is quite literal. The boy died after losing a limb to a saw which was more thoroughly described, particularly personified with beast-like details, than the boy himself. On a grander level, Frost is telling the world something is wrong. The reliance on technology by man is causing death, be it literal, as in this case, or emotional, as in others.

Robert Frost made an example of the young boy who relied upon technology developed by the forceful industrial society for a livelihood. However, this point is lost if man does not heed the warning and then change his ways. Frost has stated a predicament and, according to Tillich’s theories, it is now up to each individual man to find an answer.

Another poet, Charles Bukowski, also makes a point using a man who is reliant upon technology for his livelihood in his poem “drunk with the Buddha.” Though the man featured in Bukowski’s poem does not suffer a literal death, he faces another monster just as daunting, if not more: emotional death. Charles Bukowski’s poem is focused on a poet who is suffering from writer’s block. The poet expects to find inspiration while sitting dolefully at a typewriter, as if the typewriter is expected to be the ultimate fountain of revelation. As with the poem by Robert Frost, the machine, a result of the industrial society, is personified into something more detailed than the human protagonist the poem features. When the typewriter expectantly fails to provide a novel set of ideas for the poet, he sinks further into an emotional death, aided by alcohol.

One particular stanza in Charles Bukowski’s “drunk with the Buddha” further details the numbing effect of the industrial society on man: “we still search the walls for answers that will not arrive” (lines 13-14). Brave Bukowski is showing an example of how man now expects everything to cater to his needs now that he has mastered technology. He is making the point that answers to life cannot be found in the walls; to find these answers, one must be out in the world individually and independently seeking to find his own answers. Walls are not magic 8 balls that will reveal one’s fate. Man must be “the master of his world and of himself” (46). Man’s reliance on technology because of the industrial movement will only lead to his demise. Charles Bukowski has observed this for himself and articulated it in his poem. It is now up to man to interpret these observations and seek on his own for answers.

In conclusion, men like Charles Bukowski and Robert Frost need to continue using whatever outlets are available to communicate the predicament arising from man’s dependence on technology. However, these men can only do so much. After a problem is exposed, it is up to the rest of humanity to obtain answers.