J Oi to the World

I suppose it's admitting to a guilty pleasure when I say this is my favorite Christmas song. The Vandals postured as an Oi! band in their early days, but the fact is they're a bubblegum pop punk band, not as hard as Screeching Weasel, but a bit higher up in the spectrum than Green Day, at least. Anyway, during their oi-er days, they put out "Oi to the World," which is one of the funniest (yet poignant?) songs of their oeuvre. For those unfamiliar with punks vs. skins controversies, a brief distinction. You have your punks, who're a diverse (in hair color) group. Then there are the skins, a uniformed lot with shaved heads, boots, bracers, and working class politics. Finally there are the skinheads, who look exactly like skins except that they're racist neo nazis. Skins and skinheads hate each other for giving each other a bad name. Punks hate them both for believing in something other than anarchy and fashion. The Vandals decided that for Christmas the punks and the skins should love one another (and fight the real enemy....As Jello Biafra so poetically wrote in his song of the same title, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!")

Enjoy, and merry christmas to everyone.