An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
THE RAMONES: Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)
Written by Joey Ramone
Produced by Jean Bouvoir
Single [B-side of "I Wanna Live"], Beggars Banquet [UK], 1987
The Ramones were a dysfunctional family. Sure, they weren't really brothers, each having donned the Ramone surname as easily as they slid on their de rigueur leather jackets. That didn't matter. They fought like brudders. For the individual Ramones, bickering with each other was as much a part of life as sniffin' glue or beating on the brat with a baseball bat. Hey-ho, let's go, ya bastards!
So maybe it's an anomaly that the Ramones wrote and recorded a Christmas song. And maybe it seems incongruous that this Ramones holiday ditty appears to be a plea for peace, love, and understanding.
Yet "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)" is exactly what it seems to be: A humble but impassioned request, from one lover to another, to stop all the fighting. It's John and Yoko's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" applied to domestic disagreement.
The song's video contrasts with its stated petition for harmony and tranquility. Like many Ramones videos, it's played for laughs, or at least for the distance of amused detachment. The Ramones play, as a young couple squabbles during a Christmas party, objects flying as partygoers do what partygoers do. It's an effective exercise in frantic, fast-paced comedy, and it's very much a fun video. No lovers were harmed in the making of this clip.
Still: It's not representative of the song itself. "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)" is almost totally devoid of irony. It feels earnest, sincere. Honest. It really is a straightforward love song, Ramonesified by its pace and the deliberate quirk of its lyrical queries about the whereabouts of Santa, his sleigh, and his errant reindeer. Where is Rudolph, where is Blitzen, baby?
Merry Christmas. Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas.
No relationship is free of discord. Lovers, friends, siblings, other family members. Disagreements and arguments will occur, and no amount of love can alter that truth. Some relationships aren't worth saving.
Some are.
I love you, and you love me
And that's the way it's got to be
I loved you from the start
'Cause Christmas ain't the time for breaking each other's heart.
No matter what Her Majesty's Ramones the Beatles insisted, it is not true that all you need is love. Nor is it a fact that love conquers all. But mutual love? Respect? Consideration? My friends, that can accomplish a lot. Love can change the world. It can't do it alone...but it can do it if love accompanies love. Love with love, together, side by side?
It can happen.
It has to happen.
Peace on Earth. Good will toward all. It's an elusive goal.
But it's our only hope.
Hope begins with love. Maybe the Ramones are unlikely avatars of hope and love. On "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)," they nail it nonetheless.
Merry Christmas. We don't want to fight tonight. As tonight becomes tomorrow, as tomorrow becomes today, we could do worse than listening to the Ramones.
Like swords into ploughshares: Anyone up for decorating a baseball bat?
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