Can we begin to fathom the world when Christmas has left us? Poets and troubadours take this challenge.
January Zero can’t find the way back home “After Christmas.” This cacophony of coffeehouse pop waves its metaphors proudly to capture this (lack of) spirit.
Annie Lin is sorry she didn’t pick you up ate the airport in time in “The Day After Christmas,” a bangin’, unplugged rocker of a poetic traipse over mood swings and urban expectations.
Gar Cox goes Celtic folk epic with the drinking and head scratching all over “Too Late for Christmas.” This synesthesia of images and smells and despair needs a Joycean college class to explicate. I like that.
As i post this, Twenty Twenty-one begins. But not when i write it, nor likely when you read it. Time is a factor of our perception. Everything just is. Of course if you want chemistry or physics to work, follow the x-axis. So, when i say Songs About After Christmas: it can mean the burnout, the hangover, the mess… or it can mean the return to normalcy… or even the anticipation of Next Xmas.
Let’s start with a continuity check. If we are the only animal that can anticipate the unseen yet to be, can it be After Christmas before Christmas? Student Union (feat. Zak Stegman) applies rock country to caution “It’s Gone Before You Know It.” Either this will slow you down to savor-speed, or will be just one more thing to worry about.
Perhap the numericalization of the calendar limits the moods. “Merry ’til Christmas is Over” is real Celtic caroling from Dave Brooks & Bernard Wrigley. No judgment.
Whether the chicken came before the egg or vice versa, we can agree “Christmas Comes Four Days After Winter Solstice.” Salvador Buttersworth gets lost in the time loop of this folk masterpiece, which may teach you calendrical skills–or how fast you can reach the mute button.
Perhaps the top of my checklist for what a great song needs to impress me is… layers. Nothing too shallow for my wintry mood, nay nay. If there’s a twelve page paper needed to explicate the musical entry, i’m half-gone already. What do i mean–?
Perhaps tangential, “Waiting for the Snow” by Of Monsters & Men portentously takes on human industry, existence, and love. Good stuff to listen to while looking for Christmas music.
A revisitation of ‘Baby, It’s Cold’ “Can’t Wait for Christmas” is a sneaky electro-garage tipsy-doodle of a song. Jamir Fork keeps the listener off balance with his aggressive whimsy, all the while charming with his clumsy metaphor.
The great works of art are just out of reach of our understanding, yet so close as to seem embraceable. Just when you think you get it, whoops! What IS that?! Alison Sudol’s lullaby “Christmas will be Waiting” is the folk pop to soothe and ease to sleep. But it’s plaintive yearning is so musically loose and fun (is it that tambourine??), i don’t know how to feel–except with the goosebumps. Brava.
Getting hypoxic with suspense can lead to high pitched keening, which, any other time of the year is annoying but just before Xmas, is parentally preferred. Go figure. Squeak it up, singers!
Light and airy kid frolicsome, Doug & Deb rock the uke for “I Just Can’t Wait ’til Christmas.” It’s nearly ragtime in its earnest energy.
Perky a bit more than the music allows, “I Can Hardly Wait for Christmas” is Michael Gurley’s entry in the sing-along easy rock family time glee.
Dean Kelly switches up the Britpop to punk pogo with “Can’t Wait Until Christmas.” Catchy as Covid, innit?
Kenn Rowell & The Baghdaddies up the folk rock with shouted singing about the good old times in “I Can Hardly Wait ’til Christmas.” Not earbusting, but leaping and goofing like it’s okay.
When is Christmas music fun? Like a new boyfriend, when it’s about something! Songs that just want you to like them so they do everything they’re supposed to are predictable, calculating monsters! What did i ever see in you?! Boo hoohoo.
Olivier Deparis may think he’s in a Disney movie, but the banging of kitchen utensils for a timpani about Mom and Dad cooking makes “Can’t Wait for Christmas” a surprise rising slightly above common kidsong fodder. Bit o’ fun.
When an Australian album proclaims itself as Dance Around the Lounge Room, i give pause. Mick McIvor starts with Jesus as Elvis then tutors the tots in patience. “You Gotta Wait for Christmas” is unusually (and barely) fun.
A gay agenda is usually loud and proud, so “Just Can’t Wait for Christmas” by Sheena Rose is no drag, but fabulous pop. Perhaps a bit measured in tempo, still a solid 6 on the fun meter.
“Waiting for Snow” is breathy folk from John McCutcheon. A welcome break from the same old entry into our category. Poetic, pretty, fun.
I gravitate toward honest folk music, the casual ballad of the working man. When it’s HONEST, mind ye. Agendas are fine, but selling out isn’t.
So i’ve a bone to pick with Terry Welton’s “When It’s Nearly Christmas.” The Roger Whittaker prettiness of his breathy reaching and tinkly tunesmithery don’t back me up, much. But the giddiness for the holidays is suddenly communion with Christ–snuck that in, o you proselytizer of nuance.
Jack Terrell Clift, with a corrido approach, tells a tale of nativity with his folk epic “It Being Nearly Christmas Time.” This is an E-ticket ride that lifts and separates. Might be a bit tearful here.
Club rock by The Nigh is starting to get the party started, but the dirge-like ‘tude unplugs my tree and steps on my dog. “It’s Nearly Christmas” is nearly angry.
Three Day Threshold & Summer Villains reveal that “Almost Christmas Time” is time to cry. Missing you outweighs all the presents, baby. Despite someone else. Swinging folk outlined in garage.
Thus have we syllogized that home is where the hard on. So let’s get loving with the proximity of the holidays.
Peter Vesth is softly romantic with his strummy, yummy “Almost Christmastime Night.” But something’s lost in translation, and he comes off as Scandi-awkward. I keep hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger in his stylings.
The Whispers do that creepy synthelectric echoey Motown soul that stinks of leftover disco when they lay down “It’s Almost Christmas.” A newer arrangement ought to clear that up.
Pop chortling about being in love AND It’s “Almost Christmas Time” makes Dwight Twilley sound like a boy band with aspirations. But, Britpop gets me (nearly) every time. It’s that bass beat, baby.
The love of inter-species close friendship just makes my cut, so “Merry Almost Christmas,” the charming kidshowtune from ‘A Year with Frog and Toad,’ ensorcels me. The original cast (Mark Linn Baker, Jay Goede) know what they’re doing, and they do so with Bway elan.
You know it’s love when you’re spending it with the ‘rents-in-law. Nick Flora’s alt-folk mystical journey is over before it’s begun, but “Almost Christmas” is transportive and trance-inducing. For me, anyway.
Time travel time! Let’s listen to old times stuff about being close to the day of Christmas.
Reeking of ’60s TV specials, Larry Nestor’s “Christmas Day” claims to be not so far away, but the retro best buy date here was somewhere in the ’90s. Room temp pop.
Old World is the same as old, right? So let’s bask in the sad Irish family chanty “Christmas is Just Around the Corner” jigged by Finbar & Maura Dennehy. God bless you and keep you far away.
While we’re on the international subject, a quieter strummer allows for a more intimate moment. So “Almost Christmas Time” by The Bluegrass Brethren scores higher on the novelty-o-meter here. Still cheesy though.
The Celtic quality of the kidsong “Almost Christmas” here by Elizabeth Hanney brings a haunted, understated happiness to the repetition of joyous well wishing. Simplify thy carols!
Let’s throw the (good) book at the topic: a little religiosity while we circle in on the 25th of December is appropriate. Don’t just go to church at midnight Mass and call it good. Keep kneeling all the days.
Playful soul R+B is fecund ground for a gospel message, but “Almost Christmas Time” by The Willing Workers (feat. Lil D, The Candyman, Chynosoul & Big E) is hard to take seriously. Thanking JC for the underbelly of culture with a joyous swing, however understated, sounds off.
The Kumbaya folk lilt of Joanna McMorris sells the message better. But “It’s Almost Christmas” comes in as too measured and carefully worded to reach into the soul and produce awe/dread/love. It’s just a pretty song.
The over-ochestrated showtune quality of “I Love When Christmas is Just Around the Corner” brings the power of the sacrifice of god-as-man into the restrained gentility of a hummable tune. Marina Pierce and Christopher Puckett run arpeggios of notes ’round the reason for the season. Not getting it–
I do get Jason Gray’s over-produced joyous “Christmas is Coming” (Will You be There?). It’s a call-to-arms to be innocent and hopeful with enormous chorus back up. A bit modern, but successfully done. (Maybe it’s the pop country overtones….)
Laurie Klassen bangs the piano ragtime style (add synth-trumpets!) to beat the drum for “Christmas Time is Almost Here.” It’s folk pop that preaches with syncopation (how many syllable can YOU get out of Amen?).
Okay, less is more. Jars of Clay sneaks the Savior in poetically to “Almost Christmas.” It’s a plodding folk walk in the snow that evokes mystery and loneliness. But it’s soft as a pop prayer trailing promise and passion in its waltzing wake. Thanks.
