A Fairytale of New York. It's profane, it's sad, and it's hopeful about how you can maybe make things better with some effort and some help even if it recognizes how hard that actually is. Very Christmas to me.
I love this song, absolutely. But I do wonder that in the past 50 years there are only a handful of "great Christmas songs" compared to the previous 50 years that turned out as many in any single decade of it.
Last Christmas will always be my favourite song for the Holiday Season. I think what makes a Christmas song is a simple upbeat style mixed in with some sort of classical orchestral stuff. In Last Christmas you literally hear sleigh bells as was also the case in All I Want For Christmas is You. I think the combination of these sounds, very calm pop music style/lyrics, with more traditional and season appropriate instrumentation create the best Christmas songs.
What happened was that the music industry determined that their role in the holiday was to turn out variations of the Great Christmas Songbook by every flavor-of-the-month artist who had not the pipes for the complex melodies of the earlier era every year. Not realizing that the best versions of these songs had already been made by superior older artists. As well as a general inability of current songwriters to create satisfactory newer additions to the Songbook, for the most part.
I think there might be something to the notion that the ubiquity of bad Christmas albums diminished the Christmas song in some way. It started to feel like every Christmas season was an opportunity to hear questionable covers of the greats.
When the River Meets the Sea. By Paul Williams. Specifically the John Denver version from his special with the Muppets. Though it's not technically, lyrically, a Christmas song. Just as it's not technically a religious song. But it works on both counts.
I continue to enjoy Aimee Mann's 2006 album One More Drifter in the Snow, which has two new songs amidst the classics: Christmastime, and Calling on Mary. The latter I think is especially good: "If there's a star above, then it can look like love / When they light up the Christmas tree"
I love the Pogues A Fairytale of New York. But that one verse is rough and there's a reason most people skip it (or change it up) when singing it.
Aimee Mann's Christmas album is criminally overlooked. And I love "Fairytale of New York", which I referenced in another note. I just wish we weren't struggling to come up with more than a handful of modern classics like it compared to the 60 years of music that preceded its release.
I started listening to the song you linked, Cole, and was immediately struck by the opening sung by Ed Sheeran. It's was starting to sound close to the beginning of "You Belong to Me" but avoided it.
For my money, it's Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song". The story goes that i July 1945, Robert Wells was with Mel Torme abd they were in LA, suffering from the heat. Wells had decided to "stay cool by thinking cool" and had written down four lines on a note pad, trying to think about winter in order to cool down. Torme saw the lines on the note book on top of the piano and forty minutes later, one of the best Christmas songs came into the universe.
Cole's "Christmas Song" is very difficult to listen to for me. It's nostalgia distilled into something so powerful I can't explain it. Did you enjoy Sheerhan and John's "Merry Christmas"?
I thought it was a nice upbeat Christmas Song 🎵 . Yet it didn't have that "hook" that makes me want to sing along. Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas" or Glee's "It's a very Merry Christmas" have that punchy upbeat rhythm and melodies that becomes an earworm.
From what I've learn from watching interviews with song writers and musicians is that writing a cracking good Christmas Song that goes viral is extremely difficult.
I have though another one but it's beautifully melancholy. It's from the film Joyeux Noelle, the story about the Christmas Truce in WWI when peace and good will towards other men actually stopped the killing for a short while. That scene, and even thinking about it now, makes me watery eyed. 🥹
Christmas needs a tinge of sadness to balance the feeling of elative joy.
I made a whole playlist! Some are covers of classics, others are newer Christmas songs, others are songs that just *feel* like Christmas to me (and my very own Christmas song, Fake Snow, has snuck onto it too)
So I was doing some research a few years back to try and write a Christmas song of my own (I am not a songwriter and I don't know why I thought I could do this - story for another day), but I found this video on youtube of someone who broke it down using music theory. The gist was that many Christmas songs used the same chord progression and it sort of hammered its way into our psyche as "that's what a Christmas song should sound like." I don't know that it actually works, as I'm sure they were supporting it with not much more than anecdotal evidence, but it's fun to think about it from a theoretical perspective vs. something like it just needs some sleigh bells. Though that really helps!
So, maybe there's a "Christmas chords" floating in the universe out there like composers used to think some evoked the divine and others the Devil. Fascinating.
Xmas Cake -- sad song about how the holidays help you realize you need change
Felt Like Christmas -- low key song about the joy of being around the people you love
Elf's Lament -- Christmas by way of Brian Merchant and Eugene Debs
Rudy -- Reminder of what Christmas is supposed to mean
So I guess my point is that I think that there are great Xmas songs, just with a slightly different bent -- more reflective, more realistic about the world we live in -- as there were. Nostalgia hides, I think, the bad from the past and makes the good in the present shine not quite os bad.
I know there have been great songs, but I guess that begs the question...why don't we care they exist? Why don't they cut through? Why don't they become standards like Christmas songs used to?
You could ask that same question about all kinds of artists/ music today. Do you think we’ve become too cynical about the commercialism of Christmas to really embrace new Christmas music?
I'm going to lock this thread down in a moment, as I do. But I've also begun to wonder if it's actually impossible to end up with a Christmas song that becomes universally beloved anymore because it's nearly impossible for it to be delivered to enough people to do that. "White Christmas" became a standard after appearing in one of the most successful films of the year, sung by literally the biggest star in Hollywood at the time. "All I Want for Christmas" was a hit, but today, it's ubiquitous because of how it makes us feel because of LOVE ACTUALLY, I would argue. LOVE ACTUALLY means we cannot escape it. Every Christmas, relentlessly, forever. Anyway, just musing.
If thats true, and I am not sure it is, I suspect its true because the country was more homogeneous. Since there were fewer cultural touchstones, more effort went into those and so a higher output naturally lead ot a higher output of great material.
Now, I dont think thats neccesarily bad. I like the richer, more complete culture we have today, but I think that might contribute.
A Fairytale of New York. It's profane, it's sad, and it's hopeful about how you can maybe make things better with some effort and some help even if it recognizes how hard that actually is. Very Christmas to me.
I love this song, absolutely. But I do wonder that in the past 50 years there are only a handful of "great Christmas songs" compared to the previous 50 years that turned out as many in any single decade of it.
saw a doco on YouTube about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (?) and got the impression that a lot of the "classic" xmas songs were :
• written for commercial purposes, and
• written by non-Christians
Yeah, the non-Christian component is key to a lot of the great Christmas songs from the first half of the 20th century. Not sure what to make of that.
yeah, came here to nominate The Pogues' "Fairytale Of New York" – always moves me
Last Christmas will always be my favourite song for the Holiday Season. I think what makes a Christmas song is a simple upbeat style mixed in with some sort of classical orchestral stuff. In Last Christmas you literally hear sleigh bells as was also the case in All I Want For Christmas is You. I think the combination of these sounds, very calm pop music style/lyrics, with more traditional and season appropriate instrumentation create the best Christmas songs.
I hadn't considered the role of sleigh bells in these songs, but they do trigger something really sedative in the listener...or so I (we) think.
What happened was that the music industry determined that their role in the holiday was to turn out variations of the Great Christmas Songbook by every flavor-of-the-month artist who had not the pipes for the complex melodies of the earlier era every year. Not realizing that the best versions of these songs had already been made by superior older artists. As well as a general inability of current songwriters to create satisfactory newer additions to the Songbook, for the most part.
I think there might be something to the notion that the ubiquity of bad Christmas albums diminished the Christmas song in some way. It started to feel like every Christmas season was an opportunity to hear questionable covers of the greats.
I love the Sia Christmas album and I feel like some of those songs should have been massive Christmas hits. I’m also a big fan of this album from 2011 by Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler https://open.spotify.com/album/4aVtF7lj62MSJusr1JKujO?si=NvG5bqrLQieOmBXgP9_4Wg
I'll check this out!
When the River Meets the Sea. By Paul Williams. Specifically the John Denver version from his special with the Muppets. Though it's not technically, lyrically, a Christmas song. Just as it's not technically a religious song. But it works on both counts.
I continue to enjoy Aimee Mann's 2006 album One More Drifter in the Snow, which has two new songs amidst the classics: Christmastime, and Calling on Mary. The latter I think is especially good: "If there's a star above, then it can look like love / When they light up the Christmas tree"
I love the Pogues A Fairytale of New York. But that one verse is rough and there's a reason most people skip it (or change it up) when singing it.
Aimee Mann's Christmas album is criminally overlooked. And I love "Fairytale of New York", which I referenced in another note. I just wish we weren't struggling to come up with more than a handful of modern classics like it compared to the 60 years of music that preceded its release.
I started listening to the song you linked, Cole, and was immediately struck by the opening sung by Ed Sheeran. It's was starting to sound close to the beginning of "You Belong to Me" but avoided it.
For my money, it's Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song". The story goes that i July 1945, Robert Wells was with Mel Torme abd they were in LA, suffering from the heat. Wells had decided to "stay cool by thinking cool" and had written down four lines on a note pad, trying to think about winter in order to cool down. Torme saw the lines on the note book on top of the piano and forty minutes later, one of the best Christmas songs came into the universe.
Link below to the song 🎵
https://youtu.be/A8eWaR8ONvw?si=2pmuPuI7mS9jyIyC
Cole's "Christmas Song" is very difficult to listen to for me. It's nostalgia distilled into something so powerful I can't explain it. Did you enjoy Sheerhan and John's "Merry Christmas"?
I thought it was a nice upbeat Christmas Song 🎵 . Yet it didn't have that "hook" that makes me want to sing along. Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas" or Glee's "It's a very Merry Christmas" have that punchy upbeat rhythm and melodies that becomes an earworm.
From what I've learn from watching interviews with song writers and musicians is that writing a cracking good Christmas Song that goes viral is extremely difficult.
I have though another one but it's beautifully melancholy. It's from the film Joyeux Noelle, the story about the Christmas Truce in WWI when peace and good will towards other men actually stopped the killing for a short while. That scene, and even thinking about it now, makes me watery eyed. 🥹
Christmas needs a tinge of sadness to balance the feeling of elative joy.
https://youtu.be/-cSrqRdlFeo?si=tuKT1UmPN0u6iMkn
Maybe by Nichole Nordeman.
https://youtu.be/-JDSSUyENd8?si=DKyS4IUOgmkJ9PG2
This is a very, very lovely song, Lorin. Thank you for sharing.
I made a whole playlist! Some are covers of classics, others are newer Christmas songs, others are songs that just *feel* like Christmas to me (and my very own Christmas song, Fake Snow, has snuck onto it too)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5MnLW8pWZHi3k49amIaypr?si=PJg41DgARjuiijIFRsUE9A&pi=8jhl4IFjRZS0q
Ooh, this is fun. Added to my Spotify. Thanks for sharing!
The classics
and what makes a weird xmas song?
Bing Crosby and David Bowie duetting "The Little Drummer Boy"
I've written about that song! Two of my favorite singers. https://colehaddon.substack.com/p/one-surreal-christmas-day-in-1977?utm_source=publication-search
So I was doing some research a few years back to try and write a Christmas song of my own (I am not a songwriter and I don't know why I thought I could do this - story for another day), but I found this video on youtube of someone who broke it down using music theory. The gist was that many Christmas songs used the same chord progression and it sort of hammered its way into our psyche as "that's what a Christmas song should sound like." I don't know that it actually works, as I'm sure they were supporting it with not much more than anecdotal evidence, but it's fun to think about it from a theoretical perspective vs. something like it just needs some sleigh bells. Though that really helps!
So, maybe there's a "Christmas chords" floating in the universe out there like composers used to think some evoked the divine and others the Devil. Fascinating.
Hit return too soon :)
Xmas Cake -- sad song about how the holidays help you realize you need change
Felt Like Christmas -- low key song about the joy of being around the people you love
Elf's Lament -- Christmas by way of Brian Merchant and Eugene Debs
Rudy -- Reminder of what Christmas is supposed to mean
So I guess my point is that I think that there are great Xmas songs, just with a slightly different bent -- more reflective, more realistic about the world we live in -- as there were. Nostalgia hides, I think, the bad from the past and makes the good in the present shine not quite os bad.
I know there have been great songs, but I guess that begs the question...why don't we care they exist? Why don't they cut through? Why don't they become standards like Christmas songs used to?
You could ask that same question about all kinds of artists/ music today. Do you think we’ve become too cynical about the commercialism of Christmas to really embrace new Christmas music?
I'm going to lock this thread down in a moment, as I do. But I've also begun to wonder if it's actually impossible to end up with a Christmas song that becomes universally beloved anymore because it's nearly impossible for it to be delivered to enough people to do that. "White Christmas" became a standard after appearing in one of the most successful films of the year, sung by literally the biggest star in Hollywood at the time. "All I Want for Christmas" was a hit, but today, it's ubiquitous because of how it makes us feel because of LOVE ACTUALLY, I would argue. LOVE ACTUALLY means we cannot escape it. Every Christmas, relentlessly, forever. Anyway, just musing.
If thats true, and I am not sure it is, I suspect its true because the country was more homogeneous. Since there were fewer cultural touchstones, more effort went into those and so a higher output naturally lead ot a higher output of great material.
Now, I dont think thats neccesarily bad. I like the richer, more complete culture we have today, but I think that might contribute.