Father Christmas

Father Christmas is about a young boy whose Christmas experience wasn’t good at first making him never believe in Father Christmas. Then he finds himself performing as the character, and gets mugged by kids who tell him that they don’t want his toys, they want his money. The young boy then asks that if Father Christmas does exist, he brings a job for his dad and a machine gun so he can scare off the kids who mugged him. In an interview the Southern California radio station KSWD, Ray Davies explained how he stole shows by performing this song wearing a Santa costume, he said: “When the record came out we were on tour with a very successful band at the time supporting them. 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.’”
Release Date: November 25, 1977

Songwriter/s: Ray Davies

Label: Arista

Chart Rankings:

Artist’s age on Release Date: The English rock band was for 13 years when they released this song.

Cover Versions: Gigolo Aunts – Dispatch – Green Day – Man Overboard – Bad Religion – Warrant – Lit – Bowling For Soup – Save Ferris – Smash – Mouth – Cary Brothers – Action Action – Everything – Deer Tick – OK Go – Cheap Trick – Clay Pigeons.