Christmas comes but once a year
So I wanted to talk a little bit about some of my favorite Christmas songs.
First of all, of course, there’s the aforementioned “Fairytale Of New York” by the Pogues with Kirsty MacColl, who is the the first reason why I love this song. Then there’s the short-story like sodden character of the whole thing–what other Christmas song has lines like:
You scum bag
You maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God
It’s our last
“The Christmas Waltz,” Frank Sinatra. Maybe not the most inspired song ever written, but the second time Sinatra recorded it as a single for Capitol records, arranger/conductor Gordon Jenkins added a choral group that is truly haunting.
“Eye Of A Needle,” The Art Of Noise. All Bing Crosby samples and cash-register sounds, it’s a rather obviously “satiric” look at the commercialization of Christmas, but so well arranged that I like it both because and in spite of that.
“Christmas Time Is here,” Vince Guaraldi trio with children’s chorus. The whole album is a must, of course. But this song particuarly brings memories of the record I used to have of the entire Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, dialogue, sound effects and all. They used to do that in the days before readily availble home video, and in retrospect I think it’s one of the things that helped form my imagination, as well as my love of radio.
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” by U2 (remake) or Darlene Love (original) deserves at least an honorable mention. And then there’s “She Won’t Be Home” by Erasure. Among the the things I love about this underrated minor classic is the way that the lines–
I wanted to say to you
How much I need to be with you
–repeated in the chorus into the fade, start to sound, unintentionally, like:
I wanted to say to you
How much I need to scream with you
Only continue reading if you can stand my occasional psychological breakdowns.
I figured out many years ago that one of the great tragedies, if you will permit the drama, of my life is this. Because I grew up the only child of a single working parent and spent (and still spend) too much time alone: I have a deep, abiding desire to be part of families and communities. Many of my favorite films have that in common, as do some of the things I write. Keitha, Colley and Annabel, for example, are among other things idealized versions of a family or community I don’t have.
Where the tragedy comes in is that the same thing that makes me desperately want to have this connection is the same thing that keeps me from knowing how to behave in families, in communities. I was never “socialized,” if you like. I constanly feel as though I’m standing outside a mist-covered window, looking in at colorful, shining lights.
Or to quote Charlie Brown (and I can do this from memory): “I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel how I’m supposed to feel.”
