Everybody has been so worked up over the Duck Dynasty/Phil Robertson controversy (and, before that, Megyn Kelly’s “white Santa” drama) that it feels like we’ve misplaced our “peace on earth and good will toward men.” I really appreciate Jen Hatmaker’s wise and passionate words on the subject, but frankly I’d prefer not to add any more volume to the cacophony. Instead, I’ve come out of blogging hibernation to offer my reflections on something a little more fitting for the season. A couple days ago, I heard an engaging segment on NPR about sad Christmas songs.
“Bundled up in Christmas is hopefully a lot of joy and a lot of family and a lot of happiness, but that’s always going to be touched with an element of sadness,” said NPR’s Stephen Thompson, and I agree. Whether it’s Nat King Cole’s classic “The Christmas Song” or Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmastime Is Here,” our favorite holiday tunes usually come with a dash of melancholy. It’s what I used to refer to during my teen years as a “happy sadness.”
Every Christmas I have at least one or two songs that wind up defining the holiday for me that year. The last couple of years, the tracks from Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas comprised my go-to holiday playlist. But this year, I can’t seem to get away from the funky “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” by James Brown. The tune has been in heavy rotation on my iPod for the past couple weeks.
As a child of the 1970s and ’80s, I was a bit too young to witness James Brown in his original glory. My initial impressions of him were informed more by the mild spoofs of himself that he did in The Blues Brothers or Rocky IV. While those performances were genuine James Brown, they were more riffs on his former greatness than fresh manifestations of his true artistic brilliance. James Brown is remembered as “the Godfather of Soul,” “Soul Brother No. 1,” and “the Hardest Working Man in Show Business.” Signature James Brown hits like “I Feel Good” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” are not just great R&B songs; they’re among the greatest entries in the American songbook. It’s not hyperbole to say James Brown was one of the most influential artists in popular music. Without him, it’s difficult to imagine how any of today’s variations of pop music—rock, R&B, hip-hop—would exist in their fullness.
“Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” was released in 1968 as part of Brown’s A Soulful Christmas album. When I first heard the song a few years ago, I confess that I listened to it through the filter of the latter-day James Brown caricature. It’s the funky Godfather of Soul talking about Santa Claus going to the ghetto. That’s pure fun and silliness, right? Upon further listens, however, I was struck by how urgent the song is. Not only is it filled with an understated poignancy, at moments it virtually seethes with a biting desperation. This, after all, was 1968—the year that saw Brown moving from being one of America’s most popular entertainers to one of its most vocal activists.
Most notably, 1968 was the year that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis. All at once, the anger and hopelessness of black people boiled over in the form of riots across American cities. As the nation both figuratively and literally burned, James Brown was called upon to help bring peace to a tenuous situation. On April 5, 1968, the day after King’s murder, Brown had been scheduled to perform a concert at the Boston Garden. In the wake of the Memphis tragedy, however, the performance was initially canceled by Boston Garden management until Boston’s first African American city councilman, Tom Atkins, persuaded Boston mayor Kevin White that the James Brown concert should go on and be televised on local public television as a means of unifying the black community and directing its attention away from the despondency and rage that were hanging in the air. James Brown not only supplied a thrilling performance, he was credited with calming the city’s nerves and keeping Boston residents safely away from the troubled streets.
The full story is chronicled wonderfully in James Sullivan’s book The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America. Indeed, the Boston concert marked something of a turning point in Brown’s career. After that show, President Lyndon Johnson implored the singer to perform a benefit concert in Washington, D.C., to promote a message of nonviolence. And later in the year, Brown would release his groundbreaking hit “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud,” which placed him squarely in the fray of the civil rights movement’s struggle for racial justice in America.
It’s against this backdrop that Brown recorded “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto.” And once you get past the initial funkiness of the track (check out the quick burst of “Jingle Bells” during the saxophone solo), it’s hard not to hear it as a type of subversive protest song.
Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto
Hitch up your reindeer, uh!
And go straight to the ghetto
Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto
Fill every stocking you find
The kids are gonna love you so, uh!
What’s most striking about the song to me is how Brown acts as the tour guide for Santa, the one man whom you’d suppose knew his way around all parts of the world. But in 1968, Brown understood that Santa Claus, and all he might represent in this context—the government? the church? white America?—needed instructions for navigating their way around the ghetto, a place that was presumably foreign to them.
Leave a toy for Johnny
Leave a doll for Mary
Leave something pretty for Donnie
And don’t forget about Gary
“Tell ’em James Brown sent you,” the singer goes on to say, at once offering himself up as the conduit for connecting with the hidden pain of the black community.
I confess, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” is an odd candidate for the Christmas canon. It does not receive the acclaim of R&B holiday classics such as Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” or the Temptations’ rendition of “Silent Night.” It will never be sung by neighborhood carolers or during a church Christmas Eve service. But 45 years after the song’s release, in a 21st-century era that still boasts disturbing social and economic disparities between rich and poor, black and white, immigrant and non-immigrant, it might do us well to take Soul Brother No. 1’s desperate plea to heart. Could it be that he’s calling us to pack up our sleighs and remember the contemporary “ghettos” in our midst?
Great insight and we’ll written. As you stated, James Brown actually used his platform to help the people of America and not just himself. It’s a shame when today’s “artists” like Kanye West say they will “be greater than Nelson Mandela” when it is obvious they are completely self-absorbed. Where is today’s Stevie Wonder? Harry Belafonte? If music shapes the culture as Aristotle once said, we are in some serious trouble!
There are no true artist like Stevie, Marvin, and the old icons. 80’s hip-hop with Public Enemy, KRS-One, and others were saying something. But it’s like a dark cloud landed on the music scene. Some others have tried in recent times but it pales in comparison. When Jamie Foxx stated that he, Will Smith, Jay Z, Kanye West should be the New Civil Rights Leaders, I cringed and thought if that’s true there’s no way I would want to spend my twilight years here in America!
well said, my brother! I grew up in the late 60s in Queens, and JB had a house in St. Albans, walking distance for a kid. My brother and I used to walk past that house at Halloween and Christmas, and on that latter holiday, the house would have a Black Santa image attached to it. But you have given some great insight on JB and that song. thank you
Excellent commentary, Ed. I’m with you and appreciate the reminder of the true impact of James Brown.
That was on point. As usual Ed I love your post. Your James Brown assessments are good. I wish you would revisit however, James Brown and the Full Force produced LP ” I’m Real,” as you commented on his latter years. Not earth shaking, just a minor hit album because hip-hop sampled James Brown heavily and didn’t share any royalties with him, except for MC Hammer. James Brown fired a salvo back with the single I’m Real, although nowhere what he did during the 60’s and 70’s, I personally applauded a cultural shot that said respect your elders. I know you weren’t going there with this post, in the scheme of things James Brown, I’m giving it an honorable mention. Now back to Santa Claus Go Straight The song was out when I was about 6 years old, so yes I consider it a classic. As I consider Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano for example. And a sad commentary is that there are no more timeless classics today. No iconic figures that attempt to move us in the right or a positive direction as an American people. No true conscience musically. There was a time when a song like that was an attention grabber, but now no such artist exist. Still it’s a wonderful post.
Thanks, Donald, for your feedback and for the insight on Brown’s later work. I’ll have to check out “I’m Real.”
I agree with you that we’re lacking major artists today who are attempting to move us in a positive direction. I’m sure there are some out there (and I welcome any recommendations that folks might have), but I’m not sure that our current cultural climate fosters the kind of musical activism and artistry that came from people like JB, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, and the Staple Singers to name a few. But, man, that’s probably another blog post, isn’t it?