Year-round Yuletide oddities
Let’s sneak in a last couple songs about the end of Christmas lights. Or, rather, an end BY Christmas lights. Cue the Cryptkeeper with some horrible pun.
Crap Factory blazes some insta-death metal gargle out of “Strangled with Christmas Lights.” Okay, not exactly in our theme.
Birthing Stirrups also incompletely goof on “I Can’t Help But Strangle Myself with Christmas Lights.” Unintentional garage.
Let’s depart with 10th Grade Cutie’s “Hang Me from the Christmas Lights.” It’s garage.
Even the impoverished want the reassuring ambience of Christmas lights.
Maxwell, Miranda Parsely get 1940s retro with their pop playfulness “Christmas Lights.” They’re spending their last dime on those li’l bulbettes. And they’re so nearly happy!
Abandoned Rugs also make a play out of their misspent pennies on “Christmas Lights.” But their hijinks are the stuff of sitcoms! Ha!
Some of those modern singers lament their existential blues with bourgeois frippery in the periphery. Xmas lights? Whatever, the world’s a hole!
Urban rap takes this to heart, evidence MaRlo with “Christmas Lights.” Even if you get killed, man. Lights.
Swagkasper23 calls out the indifference of those “Christmas Lights,” even if he dies… Again rap for the loss.
Closed Heart Surgery rounds out our rap needs with “I Hope Christmas Lights Burn Your House Down.” I suspect girl troubles started it.
Young Statues echo alt “When the Lights Go Up” as a surrender to the inevitable.
Austin Hartley-Leonard dreams about being “Under Christmas Lights” as a symbol of emptiness (echo echo echo). Resigned maudlin folk.
It’s not a contest, but Hanukkah started using lights first to celebrate late December. Maybe not the most songs about it, though.
Eli Goldstein rocks the pop with “Night of Light.” It’s heavy, regardless of the rap solo, because you know ritual, reverence, history.
More Jewish rap? “Light Your Lights” by T-Chai (feat. Rihanniwitz) relies on a backdrop of Oy-vey-ee-yay-ee-yay. More for the youth group than the elders.
The ’05 cast of ‘Wicked’ gets into the candlecraft with “The Chanukah Song (We are Lights).” A traditional celebration orchestrated for the whole stage. Wotta production.
Hasidic breakdown from 8th Day in their boy band jumper “Miracle of Light.” Huh?
Ari Goldberg leans into the bouncy pop of “Hanukkah Light.” It’s uplifting, which just seems weird for that holiday.
I’ll admit to watching the first season of Stranger Things, but was so racked by how glacial and derivative it was that i pretended i never did.
But, gotta tell ya, Ingrid Michaelson’s ‘borrowing’ of the “Christmas Lights” bit from that show to tell a tale of romantic hardship goes a whole ‘nother dimension of weird. It’s a fun alt-lite number, and i completely dig the animated video made for it, but please don’t have hype-culture inspire anything but humorous songs! Please!
Christmas lights are such a staple that any satirist worth his nutmeg can tune up a pop song with the mere allusion to them and create a knee-slapper.
Ducan G lights up Passenger with “The Candles Glow.”
Krazy Kyles play around with Blink-182 in “Tree Lights Stockings.”
The Withers go all out on Carl Douglas’s ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ as “Christmas Lighting.” Yeah, I’ve played you that before, but it still caught you off guard!
The Xmas lights were shining when you were in love, the Xmas lights were still shining when you broke up. Turn off the damn lights.
Pushing our boy to the limit, Trevor Fett wants out with the melodic rap “Christmas Lights Magenta.” I coulda told you, those girls who want a rocket ship are to be avoided at all high costs.
Singing while you were walking away, The Kingdom of McChicken wears their garage folk on their sleeves in the shadows of “Christmas Lights.” Sounds like a Wes Anderson movie scene.
Coldplay goes even softer alt with their poisonous breakup “Christmas Lights.” That’ll show her, boys.
When she’s gone, put up the “Blue Light Christmas Tree.” It reminds Steven John Tillotson of her, so–painful, but pop blues.
Missing her, Salvador Buttersworth wishes she could help him decide what was real when “I Thought I Saw the Christmas Lights from Adel.” It’s a whole alt thing.
Wishing for the makeup after the breakup Keegan DeWhitt & The Sparrows toss up some “Christmas Lights” of Hope. Gentle alt-pop, ‘cuz that’s woo-thy.
Those little light bulbs on a string for Jesus sure get me in a frisky mood. Baby.
Cody Joe Hodges country twists all the holiday catchphrases into double entendres in “Tangled in the Christmas Lights.” Whoa, Nelly, that’s a warm apple cider, that one is.
Julian Primeaux hoots lowly for his mood-setting “Christmas Lights in June.” Jazzy alt that melts in your hand as well as your mouth.
James Kolchaka Superstar somehow commingles those “Beautiful Christmas Lights” with coveting thy neighbor’s wife. Experimental breezy fun. [The BLUE ALERT random electronic rap on this theme is “Christmas Lights” by Nessley, mentioned here as a postscript only. Sheesh!]
Another oopsie missed date. Did someone hack me?
Keaton Simons seems to like his song “Eyes Light Up at Christmas,” a peppy pop romp that encourages good feelings.
Marlene Dietrich croons “Christmas Lights” on the trees, but they’re candles. Oh, that was a thing. Symphonic mit sotto voce.
The true course of Xmas lights ne’er did run smooth. Sometimes they tangle up, just like love ’round the holidays.
Tangled up, is the theme for the stand-offish love ballad “Christmas Lights in June.” Patrick McGlynn is not all in for this romance, despite his somewhat passionate alt-pop
Garage music love is not like regular love, perhaps more intense, perhaps more cazh. Samurai Tiger’s “Christmas Lights” paces between the two with awkward lyrics.
Doomed love from Levi Altar with the pretty pop guitar pickings and modulated commercial announcement-voice in “The Lights.” Unrequited hollerin’.
Calmer, Slowly Slowly metaphorizes the lover as the lights you take for granted. Alt-declamatory, “Christmas Lights” takes us for an advanced poetry course of angst. Some anger, too.