So to set the scene: I flew Out West for the American Thanksgiving this year, as is my wont. And riding around the highways of the city in question with the UCoS my host, we’re quite naturally surfing the FM band. And — naturally? — about half the stations have injected Christmas songs into their rotation. By November 26th.
After the obligatory complaining about the slow, steady march of Christmas music earlier and earlier in the year, we got to discussing depressing Christmas songs. Now there’s a fair few of these, as it happens: “I believe in Father Christmas” by Greg Lake, a cheery little ditty about disillusionment as one ages; “Father Christmas” by the Kinks, featuring a street-corner Santa being roughed up by some young punks; even “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, which is a very sad song if you actually listen to it. But of course, my all-time favourite is “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues with Christie McColl, which managed to incorporate elements of all three of these themes (broken dreams, rage against the System, loneliness) and is a pretty damn fine piece of music to boot.
I bring this up now because I’d mostly managed to avoid Christmas music from that day until this afternoon. Fortunately, the song that was playing on the radio at the deli was another fine piece of Christmas cheer: “2000 Miles” by the Pretenders. This is not to be confused with any songs by the Proclaimers that you might be thinking of; rather, it’s another variation on the theme of separation during a time of notional togetherness.
One feature that’s shared by both the Pretenders’ and the Pogues’ songs is that, while they’re “Christmas songs” in some sense, they’re not really about Christmas. Rather, they’re using Christmas as a backdrop to make an entirely different point. As such, I find they make a welcome change from the syrupped-up new versions of older songs, and am actually a little regretful that they’re tagged as Christmas songs and only make their appearance starting in late November.