JOPLIN, Mo. — There is little worse than Christmas radio stations. As Christmas draws near, my holiday cheer declines in exact proportion to the number of times I hear Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” So, naturally, I’m about one “everyone dancin’ merrily” away from suicidal.

That’s why this week I’ve been working on some Christmas playlists, one comprising melancholy songs, generally my favorite around the holidays, and one of more upbeat tunes for balance.

~ Wizzard: “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.” Roy Wood was a member of The Move and later Electric Light Orchestra before departing to form Wizzard, and he already looked like a drug-damaged psychedelic Santa Claus. So perhaps it’s no surprise his idea of a Christmas song would be so brimming with manufactured joyfulness that it borders on the demented.

Wood, whose music I enjoy quite a bit, never met a production he couldn’t overproduce, and “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” sounds like Brian Wilson on uppers trying to capture the sound of Santa’s village. It’s fantastic.

~ The Yobs: “Another Christmas.”  The Yobs were a thinly disguised The Boys, a power-pop punk band from the U.K. The band adopted the pseudonym to release their 1980 album “The Yobs Christmas Album.”

“Another Christmas” is two minutes of power-chords and irreverence, delivered with a sneer and chiming bells. The joke is delivered with such enthusiasm that it brings a smile to my face easier than most earnest Christmas songs.

~ÊThe White Stripes: “Candy Cane Children.” This 2002 single recorded early on the Stripes’ career finds Jack White at his meanest, warning a girl not to hang around on Christmas just because no one has a gun and snarling a line that could’ve come from “Die Hard,” “Why don’t you open me up?”

~ The Kinks: “Father Christmas.” This 1977 Kinks single is the Occupy Wall Street of Christmas songs. Over a catchy, Kinksy rave-up, Ray Davies tells a story about a Santa Claus getting mugged by some poor kids who tell him to give them some money and save his toys for the “little rich boys.”

The music falls out at one point as Davies muses, “Have yourself a merry, merry Christmas, have yourself a good time, but remember the kids who got nothin’ while you’re drinkin’ down your wine.”

~ R.E.M.: “Silver Bells.” Michael Stipe sings this holiday standard with an exaggerated country twang, and while it’s drenched in irony, it’s also imminently enjoyable.

~ The Ramones: “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight).” I’m not sure why this one isn’t a holiday classic blanketing the airwaves, as inescapable as “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” It’s catchy and blunt with a fine seasonal message: Put aside your emotional garbage and try to enjoy the people you’re with for one day.  

~ The Raveonettes: “The Christmas Song.” The Raveonettes open this understated throwback of a rock song with a line that sets the longing tone the duo maintains for the next two minutes and change: “All the lights are coming on now; how I wish that it would snow now.” It’s a fun, understated tune embellished with small details such as sleigh bells, as cool as a December night.

~ T. Rex: “Christmas Bop.” This is little more than a glam trifle, but with Marc Bolan’s signature big backbeat and rock exuberance, it’s got charm. And it’s a keeper if for no other reason than when the backup singers sing “Christmas, T. Rexmas.”

~ Clarence Carter: “Backdoor Santa.” Some down-and-dirty soul sung from the perspective of a dirty old man. How can you not love the line, “I ain’t like old St. Nick, he don’t come but once a year / I come running with my presents every time you call me dear”?

~ Merle Haggard: “If We Make It Through December.” I love this song. Hag croons about the hardships of the holiday season from the perspective of a man who just lost his job and can’t afford to buy his loved ones gifts, but there’s a dogged optimism to the song as he sings, “If we make it through December, we’ll be fine.” Except the problem is you don’t really believe him.  

~ Bon Iver: “Blood Bank.” Personally, I think this should be a new Christmas standard. It’s a deeply weird and beautiful song about falling in love near Christmas after meeting a cutie at a blood bank and getting trapped in a snow storm.

~ John Prine: “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow).” While not really a Christmas song, I always associate it with the holidays because of its weary atmosphere and opening stanza: “My heart’s in the ice house come hill or come valley / Like a long ago Sunday when I walked through the alley / On a cold winter’s morning to a church house / just to shovel some snow.”

~ Dwight Yoakam: “Come on Christmas.” A slow, dark song that proceeds at a glacial pace with Yoakam begging Christmas to come and imbue him with even of a sliver of goodwill and hope, a reason to keep going Ñ my kind of Christmas song.

~ Okkervil River: “Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas.” I don’t listen to Okkervil River much anymore, but this song always kills me, perhaps because it’s specifically about listening to sad songs during Christmas and reminiscing about paths not chosen.

The version I prefer is a live one, and in the beginning it is little more than some soft, repetitive drumming, acoustic guitar and Will Sheff singing. There are a number of devastating details about coming home for Christmas such as finding your childhood room just like you left it.

Then strings come in near the end and find Sheff reflecting on lost love interpolating the chorus from a classic Redding song. For a moment Sheff imagines what it might’ve been like if he’d stayed in his hometown and married his old girlfriend before snapping back to the present with the line, “Your dad says you’re living in Georgia since last September / Yeah, well, I’ve got dreams, dreams to remember, I’ve got dreams, dreams to remember.”

~ Otis Redding: “White Christmas.” Speaking of listening to Otis at Christmas time, not much music, holiday or otherwise, gets much better than this.