Christmas songs are big business. No one even knows most of the words to them beyond the first chorus, but even the atheists know the melodies. This is why everyone tries to write a classic Christmas song, and why so many of these songs make us physically ill. Except for the song highlighted below.

Most of the good rock 'n roll Christmas songs are adaptations from the Christmas classics, like "Sleigh Ride" and others. It takes real talent write up a whole new song. Though it's been done, few songwriters turn the Christmas song into an anti-war message. John Lennon was able to do this. When the Beatles called it quits in 1970, they had long abandoned their cheeky Beatlemania image from 1963-64. By 1969, John Lennon looked like Jesus Christ, and he pushed the envelope lyrically and musically, writing and playing from the gut. His first solo album was a shocker, a product of his Primal Scream therapy and the sparse musicianship that provided a coarse backdrop to the self-examination growing out of the Beatles' breakup.

That kind of songwriting wouldn't make for a pleasant Christmas song, however. So Lennon reached into his bag of melodies and gave us "Happy X-Mas/War is Over." This is a sing-a-long, but not quite Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It's more like Johnny L. the anti-war preacher. This was during the Vietnam era, when few rock stars even wrote straightforward anti-war songs. Lennon took things one step further and wrote an anti-war Christmas song.

This brave act would be meaningless without a good song. It's all about the song. While the radio broadcast "Happy X-Mas/War is Over" through the 70's, 80's and 90's, the song never did seem that topical as there was no war going on. There's one now. War is back in style, but it's an anti-war moment for the rest of us. Music will never stop any war. But these days it's still a risk to even try. Lennon may no longer be with us, but I know for damned sure that were he alive today, he'd have given us a follow-up to "Happy X-Mas/War is Over".