‘Naughty Christmas’: The bizarre song Joe Strummer wanted to delete from existence

Posted On November 1, 2025November 1, 2025

Storming the musical equivalent of the Winter Palace, punk envisioned itself as a complete cultural revolution, but when the industry stuck its claws in, the scene quickly devolved into nothing more than safety pin fashion and a bunch of art school kids adopting the vocabulary of Roger Mellie.

Ever the individualist, though, Joe Strummer always remained true to the original spirit of the revolution. 

The sweat-stained walls of The Roxy Club saw the birth of a litany of different ramshackle punk bands back in 1976, but The Clash were always a little different. In an age when learning more than three chords was seen as superfluous, Strummer and the gang immersed themselves in an expansive range of different styles and sounds, always maintaining profound political commentary and class unity at their core.

What’s more, Strummer’s songwriting style only seemed to expand with every passing year, keeping The Clash relevant while virtually all of their punk contemporaries imploded.

By the time that The Clash came to the end of their run in 1985, the band had explored everything from jazz experimentation to dub reggae, rockabilly, and they were even early adopters of hip-hop. Despite their ever-expanding sonic repertoire, though, each new style was embraced wholeheartedly and with the kind of respect and artistic drive which set Strummer apart from every other frontman of the punk age. If you ignore the band’s disastrous final album, Cut The Crap, The Clash are one of the few bands to boast a truly flawless discography.

That is not to say, however, that Strummer’s musical career has been without its regrettable moments. The aforementioned Cut The Crap album, for instance, stands out as a particular blemish on his record, both in terms of its musical quality (or lack thereof) and the frontman’s treatment of his former band members around that time. Topper Headon being booted out of the band for his heroin addiction, closely followed by Mick Jones for ‘musical differences’, didn’t seem to suit the unifying nature of the band, and the music certainly suffered as a result.

Strummer’s biggest regret, however, arrived years after The Clash had thrown in the towel, when he was free to explore a vast and ever-diversifying range of solo projects. Although admittedly, these efforts rarely captured the same attention or quality as his days with the pioneering punk outfit, there are certainly some hidden gems within Strummer’s solo discography. The song ‘Naughty Christmas (Goblin In The Office)’, however, is not one of them.

“As proud as a gnarly old lion. I tell you what I’m going to have on my gravestone: ‘Here, not of his own volition, lies Joe Strummer,” he told Hot Press in 1999. “He could’ve lived his life differently, but he couldn’t have lived it better. Apart from doing the Fat Les single, that is.” ‘Naughty Christmas (Goblin In The Office)’ was the single in question, and it featured Strummer’s guitar stylings alongside the likes of Matt Lucas, Paul Kaye, and a young Lily Allen.

Appearing on a novelty Christmas song, revolving around the drunken antics of an office Christmas party, hardly seems like the kind of thing the former frontman of ‘the only band that matters’ would have willingly agreed to. Then again, the 1990s were a strange time, with far stranger musical collaborations hitting the airwaves around the same time.

So, you can say what you want about Cut The Crap, but even Keith Allen himself must surely admit that it eclipses ‘Naughty Christmas (Goblin In The Office)’ in a multitude of ways. It is no surprise that Strummer would rather have forgotten his involvement in it.

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