Year-round Yuletide oddities
Has Santa ever let YOU down? How does that make you feel after Xmas?
Johnny Setlist has got those “Post-Christmas Blues” for the reasons that no Santa, no presents, and even no snow inflict upon him. Humming, strumming actual blues. But ironic. (Which is not a blues thing.)
When Young Tom doesn’t get what was on his list, Same Time Tomorrow hard rocks the response in “The Day After Christmas.” Careful! When he still doesn’t get it another year after THAT, (BLUE ALERT) he’s even less satisfied.
The party’s moved on, the house has emptied–what’s that echoing sound?
Well, Santa is feeling the sudden changes. With hard rock blues, Big Johnson and The Thrusters troll the ancient Yuletide carol with “Day After Christmas.” He’s lonely now.
Soothing crooning from Walt Hoagland: “It was the Night After Christmas.” But it’s without you. So it actually sucks.
Measured blues from Steve and Jacky Cox, “The Week After Christmas” regrets the whole damn year. Glad that it’s over. Poor me. (Good song.)
Sometimes the mixed up feelings after Christmas has rolled over us cause hard to define anxieties/peevishness. Let’s suffer along….
No more presents to unwrap is metaphor for Lonely Robot in “The Morning After the Night Before Christmas.” It’s all just marking time, this march from birth to death. Garage-fueled pop. After the unwrapping, the ennui.
That countdown may devour one’s soul. Without a sense of time, John Gannon’s protagonist is fretting about the “364 More Days.” Showtime pop with a clarinet edge.
Cledus T. Judd also expresses math angst with his silly country smiler “364 More Shopping Days ’til Christmas.” Heard this one before, but he’s funny.
Pain can turn sadness to anger on a dime. The loss of Xmas celebrations opens a void that shrieking can barely edge over. Where you’re mad as noel, and you can’t bake it any more.
Matt Kaye waxes coffee house poetical with harmonica club blues in “After Christmas.” It’s an ugly picture of the later-times. Close your eyes, children!
Hate metal might be the way to go here. “The Day After Christmas” by Call of the Sirens (with didgeridoo solo) takes the time of year to task with a passion.
Angry rap from Riz featured on silliness from Random at Best also packs a bone to pick when “Christmas is Over.” Non-Christmas urban rage translated through Office Space.
The letdown of the end of the year is post-seasonal depressing. No matter how great Xmas was, the wind-down is a wet blanket in comparison.
Jerry Becker begs, Please don’t let “The Day After Christmas” turn cold. He reasons, It’s just another day. And his tuneless muddling is just another song.
More British, Quadband adds a symphonic backbeat to the message–“The Weekend After Christmas” shatters every childhood dream. Harsh, but well rehearsed.
Michael DeLong magics a guitar while reciting a laundry list of what you don’t get in “After Christmas Blues.” It’s a lot. More folk than blues, though.
The least wonderful time of the year, begins “After Christmas (Januarysong).” Wisherkings slows time and melody to make us face the end of joyeaux noel. Symphonic folk weirdness. Damn.
What of the love that wanes, a casualty of the Christmas drama? Is it so hard to lose both the spirit of giving and the highlights of sharing? Or is it all one big bad?
It could just be time to leave. Sun June sings “Christmas is Over” with so little spirit, and nothing left to say. Just going away. Sluggish folk pop.
Best breakup excuse is the (lack of) quality of the gift-giving. An oft-featured chorale Xmas antidote, “The Twelve Days After Christmas,” is here given all the highbrow comedy cracking up Cynthia Lemen & Cool Lemon Jazz can bring to bear. See what they did with their parody….
2nd best excuse is met someone else: The Thneeds club rock a breakup over a mall Santa. Yet “The Night After Christmas” is clever and hopeful from the clever angry left-behind guy. Hats off to the chins-up survivors.
Megg is a mess “3 Days After Christmas.” Bangin’ pop details all the lies, outcries, and whys of the romantic crash and burn. Watch out!
“There in Bristol After Christmas” by Coming Soon (feat. Howard Hughes, Dave Tattersall) orders a side of sad to go with their diner delicacy of breakup. Grunge-y folk ballad.
King Everything is “Unfollowing You After Christmas.” So there. Amateurishly half-baked more than garage rock.
Rockin’ the warble, Scott Ryan cries that she packed up and lefty him and now it’s “The Day After Christmas.” It’s all broken candy canes and missing carols. Pretty pop, raw feelings.
Or how ’bout, how ’bout this–just forget the whole thing. Earwig is not waiting for you, not this time. Emo-boy slow pop (it gets mad later) tells you what it’s gonna be “Next Christmas.” In yo’ tinsely face!
Christmas is over, now. Did you take down the tree yet? Recycle the wrapping? Pick up the pieces of your shattered love life?
“After December Slips Away” was first recorded by its originators First Call. They lean into the God aspect more. Donny Osmond, for me, makes his cover about heartbreak. So we’ll sneak it in here.
Shouting out the pain Shanghai Liliy Dublin includes trees and babies in the abandonment of lost love. “The Day After Christmas” is best accompanied with fist pounding on any nearby handy furnishing.
Stina Nordenstam doesn’t borrow any Xmas imagery to feel left out in the snow (that’s not there), but her piercing “Soon After Christmas” dawdling pop is about the desperation of wanting to turn the calendar page but being frozen. C’mon! Binge Queen’s Gambit! You’ll make it!
The operatic power of D.C. Anderson doesn’t quite get in the way of the sorrow of “Soon After Christmas,” a recessional walk down regret lane.
Just like waiting until the kids are grown and moved out, some couples keep it together until the holidays are over. Otherwise you have to explain it to the parents, and you lose out on couples’ presents, and you miss out on one last drunk hookup….
Authentic country twang (BEFORE 1970, y’all) from Terry Fell becries “Let’s Stay Together ’til After Christmas.” Heartbreaking, nerve-wracking, ear-hurting.
Raising the roof, Sweet Spirit wants to know about the continued offerings once “Christmastime is Over.” Will it be tokens of love? Girl retro rock.
Hooting and crooning, Datsen offers that “After Christmas” you can get your divorce papers. Just wait a bit, wouldja? Sad folk.
Joseph Bradshaw and Nikki Lane go full George Jones/Tammy Wynette with “Wait ’til After Christmas.” This melodic sparring match juices up the holidays with side eye and subvocal venom. Gave me shivers.
So, we missed the connection this Christmas? Was there anything at all? Should i give up now? And not wait?
Alex Goot doesn’t hold out quite as much hope for “Next Christmas Eve,” a soul/pop test of vocal chords.
Casting the possibilities among swine, Emmrose wonders whether there’s love in your soul. “Maybe Next Christmas” you’ll know. Lugubrious pop.
Just ask! Will You Still Love Me “Two Weeks After Christmas” Man Feelings want to know with retro pop coolness. Don’t know the answer, but i sure enjoyed the querying.
’50s slow-dance rock backs up The Barbary Coasters as they ask the perennial question: “Will You Still Love Me (After Christmas Break)?” Evidence will be presented, clues will be investigated, friends asked. Yet, the mystery remains.
Maybe the love will outlast Xmas… i mean, without the mistletoe, that magic feeling could still… couldn’t it?
Start here: “Don’t Take Down the Mistletoe” recommends Misty River with haunting lady harmony in this folk sudser.
Remembering this Christmas love “Long Past Christmas Day,” Terry Wetton dwells in a mandolin riff of almost Celtic country wistfulness.
Channeling their inner Elvis, Beatnik Turtle wishes “The Morning After Christmas” to just have a little more with you. Pretend, in rocking doo wop, it isn’t over.
Ken Kondrat and Dave Uchalik figure that “After the Holidays” there’ll be more time to be a couple–even if it takes all year. Sock hop bebop.
Plunking hard on that pee-yanner, Bob Malone bemoans the afterness of Christmas in “The After Christmas Song.” But he still wishes you love and stuff. That gravelly voice makes you believe.
Hilariously awkward, “The Day After Christmas” scripts the wrong guy at the wrong time (with the wrong gift) not making a dent in love, despite his worst intentions. Pretty folk pop from Delightful Young Men.
Brad Paisley agrees. “364 Days to Go” slow waltzes the country music to maintain Christmas did it’s job. We’ll stay connected for the next year.