To help ring in the holidays, the Golden Filter covered Psychic TV’s “White Nights” from the band’s 1983 second album Dreams Less Sweet, a collection that did, in fact, include contributions from the recently departed Peter Christopherson. The original re-appropriated dialogue from Rev. Jim Jones’s so-called “death tapes.” As the Golden Filter note in their writeup, “The chorus — ‘Santa Claus is checking his list, going over it twice, seeing who is naughty and who is nice’ — was a rhyme used by Jones to teach children paranoia.” Though it doesn’t come close to what Genesis & Co. built, this update’s chirpy sheen makes Jones’s message all the more eerie.

The Golden Filter – “White Nights” (Psychic TV Cover)

The unofficial video: