https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW3DnN2zLKQ Sample lyric: "I'll be blue just thinking about you. Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree won't be the same dear if you're not here with me." Classic country music is not generally known for jollity and good cheer. It is hardly a surprise, then, that a 1940s country standard would be one of the first and most enduring examples of the lovelorn, lonely and depressed Christmas ballad sub-genre. Written in 1948, Blue Christmas was first a hit for Texas Troubadour Ernest Tubb. Tubb would also record the even more maudlin I'm Trimming My Christmas Tree With Tears. It was Blue Christmas, though, that was his major legacy when it comes to bleakness in the holiday season and that's why it's the one that makes it on this list. Blue Christmas' ongoing popularity was assured when Elvis Presley recorded a blues-y rock 'n' roll version as the lead single for Elvis' Christmas Album. As a result, every seasonal compilation album now enjoys a sudden change of cheerful tone when it reaches Elvis' lamentful crooning of how he'll have a depressing Christmas in spite of all the trappings of a happy holiday that appear in every other Christmas song.