Category: folk

Perhaps the first thing you see the next morning post-X is the big mess.

Homer & Jethro tee off the humor of chaos from 1968 with “The Night After Christmas.” Rollicking redneck fun crashin’ ’round the cottage.

Violence erupted all over Entre-Knobs (feat. Rob Boyd)’s homefront in “Christmas is Over.” Guns may have been involved in this ska-pop dance number.

Swedish Formula One driver Slim Borgudd can’t seem to find you in the tangle of gifts, leftovers, or decorations. “Talking After Christmas Blues” builds in a non-Scandinavian moroseness that may unnerve you. Jangly jazz blues.

Talky blues-lite from Dashboard Hula Girls observes the mess detachedly in “The Day After Christmas.” Not much more to it than that.

Only a gently strewn floor sets the scene of “The Day After Christmas” by John Pollard. Whimsical folk nostalgia for two days before.

Throwing out turkey bones, beer bottles, and faraway friends Bill Lloyd uses “The Day After Christmas” as a time for renewal. One man’s trash is another man’s garbage. Hard strummin’ folk.

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.

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.

Then there’s just bumming out… because–Christmas!

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.