Laibach strikes again, this time in collaboration with their Slovenian colleagues of Silence. The band is known for taking seemingly innocent pop songs and showing political ambiguities in them. The song that Laibach has reworked this time is ‘White Christmas’, which in its original version by Bing Crosby became the best-selling single of all time, and which is also one of the most covered songs ever.

Anyone who sees the video of the song will immediately notice that the song refers to war. A child stands in a snow globe, looking out at a horizon of destroyed buildings with plumes of smoke and falling bombs. The falling flakes could also just be ash, and shots can be heard in the background. Laibach could refer to the wars in Ukraine, Congo or Sudan, but the colours of the animation clearly refer to the Palestinian flag.

Laibach adds even more layers to the interpretation, since ‘White Christmas’ is a composition by Irving Berlin, a Jewish composer who fled the poverty and anti-Semitism of the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century and tried his luck in the United States. He initially had to make do with small jobs, but eventually worked his way up as a composer. At the outbreak of the First World War, he began writing patriotic songs. He wrote ‘God Bless America’ at the end of the First World War, but did not release it until the eve of the Second World War in 1938, which was also his reaction to the threat of war by Adolf Hitler, to which Berlin, as a Jew, was very sensitive.

Folk singer Woody Guthrie, however, could not stand such patriotism, and wrote ‘God Blessed America For Me’ in response. At that time, singers like Guthrie were influenced by the American communist party, which was very opposed to war with Nazi Germany. They even paraded through the streets with slogans such as ‘Hitler has not attacked us. Why attack Hitler?’ After all, the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, and so the US should not get involved in a European imperialistic war. This changed abruptly when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. The same people who had previously railed against Western militarism began calling for joining the army in order to fight fascism. Guthrie reworked his song in 1944, removing the anti-American passages, and scored a big hit with the result: ‘This Land Is Your Land’.

Although ‘White Christmas’ was not explicitly intended to support the war against Nazi Germany, it was popular with American troops fighting in Europe. The song became known from the 1942 musical ‘Holiday Inn’, and was primarily intended as a secular Christmas song, written by a Jew, no less. Today it is given a new interpretation by Laibach, who put the song in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As described above, the song lends itself to different layers of meaning and interpretations, but I think it is beyond dispute that Laibach also wants the wars in the Middle East to end as soon as possible.

The single also contains the song ‘Silence Night’, which you can download on bandcamp.