10 Least Festive Christmas Songs Ever

This song stood as the UK’s best selling single ever for over a decade and it’s been re-recorded by new line-ups of pop stars three times. Do They Know It’s Christmas is so much a part of Christmas that it’s easy to forget how completely at odds it is with most other perennial Christmas hits.

Midge Ure does his best to squeeze some Christmas spirit into the melody. If we’re being generous, the sound of so many pop stars singing the chorus on mass is vaguely reminiscent of a choir singing carols. There’s no getting away however, from Geldof’s far from festive lyrics.

Of course, the song was for a good cause and it reminds us to think of others at this time of year, which makes it a welcome part of the Yuletide pantheon. It’s something of a departure from previous Christmas fare all the same.

If you go back to the UK in the seventies, the big Christmas songs were all about everybody having fun and snowmen bringing snow. The bleakest Christmas song they had was Mud’s Lonely This Christmas and even that was livened up by an Elvis impression. They wouldn’t believe you if you said that one day, no Christmas would be complete without a song that mentions “dread and fear,” or, “the clanging chimes of doom.”

We’re so used to it now that we can happily gorge ourselves on turkey and stuffing while a song about famine plays in the background.