Some non-traditional Christmas songs I favor:
“It’s a Big Country” (Davitt Sigerson) - a warm, sweet-natured, country-tinged song from an underrated rocker that reads like a family Christmas letter sent to relatives scattered around the country.
“Lord of the Dance” (Arthur Brown) - A nice version of the folk standard by Arthur Brown, who used to wear a helmet of butane jets back in the 1960s when he did “Fire (I’ll Teach You to Burn)” before he became a Christian. Still a wonderfully distinctive singing style.
“December” (The Waterboys) - I’m listening to a lot of their songs these days. A seemingly secular song about winter, and the paradoxical sense of strength and resolve the singer feels:
December
December is the cruelest month
this time for once my cheeks are warm
After long years in the monkey-house
I am ready for the storm
Let them throw all their cannonballs
let all their strongmen come
I’m ready to go anywhere
through venom, sick and scum!
December isn’t always cold
this year she’s mine, I know why
Somewhere a flower has to grow
for every flower that dies
I’m stricken with fever
but my heart is strong as steel
I’m ready to go anywhere!
I can believe I can feel!
December is a trusted friend
I always recognise her face
It’s a plague of fool thrown aside
forever by her soft and silent grace
She is reckless as a Mayday
gentle as a stone
She’s ready to go anywhere
to carry me back home!
Then bats it out of the park with a final stanza that sends chills up my spine:
December fell deep in the bleak
winter time when Jesus Christ
Howled a saviour baby’s howl
primal truth as pure as ice
And though we crucified him on a cross
and dragged his word from prayer to curse
He was able to go anywhere
he was almost one of us!
youtube.com/watch?v=dneQheeevWo
I love songs like that - like U2 and B.B. King singing “When Love Comes to Town” - Bono and B.B. trade lyrics back and forth about love of a woman, love of music, and then B.B. Kings growls out the final stanza about ultimate love:
I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I’ve seen love conquer the great divide!
youtube.com/watch?v=th1kQER770M
Walking in the Air (Aled Jones) - from the British Christmas classic animated film about the snowman who comes to visit a little boy (can’t remember the title). His version of “O Holy Night” is also beautiful.
I never knew Manowar and Twisted Sister did Christmas songs. Thanks for that.
