I sought music that at once captured that seasonal sense of wonder and awe as only children seem to be able to experience anymore, while also critiquing the creeping mass of consumerism and self-righteousness that ruined it all in the first place. For I'd grown weary of Bing Crosby and Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas covers; and my soul was oppressed by the likes of "The Forgotten Carols", Mannheim Steamroller, cheap supermarket Swing covers of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", a capella "Little Drummer Boys", and all their ilk. No more, said I! I was on a mission to redeem the season.
As such, I started with the counter-culture standards: John Lennon's anthemic "Happy X-mas (War is Over)", The Kinks' incendiary "Father Christmas", The Who's tongue-in-cheek "Christmas" (from Tommy). (By contrast, Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time" almost cancels out the White album). I also collected Holiday EPs by Low and Joshua James, two artists who are as eager to explore the season's malaise as its euphoria--often at the same time.
Thus far, I'd only collected maybe an hour's worth of Christmas music I didn't hate. Things were looking grim. But then a true Christmas miracle happened:
I discovered Sufjan Stevens.
To say that Indie-darling Sufjan Stevens is obsessed with Christmas is to say the Pope is kinda Catholic; over the course of the millennium's first decade, Sufjan released not one, but ten separate Christmas EPs, then collected them all into not one, but two box-sets: 2006's Songs for Christmas and 2012's Silver and Gold (hey, just in time for my Christmas quest! Coincidence?). The ever-prolific Sufjan has released near as much Christmas music as he has "regular" music--in fact, I dare say that his "regular" releases are the sideshow, that in fact his true M.O., his raison d'etre, his calling, that for which he'll be best remembered (well, besides "Chicago"), is his music for Christmas, in all of its contradictions and messiness and agony and ecstasy.
And here I thought my relationship with Christmas was fraught!
Of the two box-sets, Songs for Christmas has been out longer, and thus has the bigger reputation. His song "Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!" is now considered a classic in certain Indie quarters, and rightfully so. But for my money, Silver and Gold is his masterpiece--and I don't say use that word lightly.
Examples: whereas the "Silent Night" that kicks off Songs for Christmas is just a quick, calming, 40-second acoustic ditty, the "Silent Night" that begins Silver and Gold is this intense and quivering rendition with layered vocals, shimmering piano, and anxious guitar. He has grown more confident in his song-writing powers. The message is clear: Sufjan Stevens isn't just going to sing about Christmas anymore, or even for Christmas, no--he's now going to wrestle with Christmas at last and make it his own.
Another stark contrast: the "Joy to the World" on Songs for Christmas is a charming, but ultimately safe and generic acoustic number such as any Indie singer might churn out by December; but the "Joy to the World" on Silver and Gold transforms into this wild electronica experiment at 1:48, and even mashes in his own "Impossible Soul" chorus from The Age of Adz. Again, on Silver and Gold, Sufjan no longer lets Christmas just happen to him, but makes Christmas his.
More examples: while "It's Christmas! Let's be Glad!" on Songs for Christmas plaintively pleads for Christmas to cheer him up for once, "Carol of St. Benjamin the Bearded One" on Silver and Gold takes Christmas by the throat. Sufjan here uses Christmas to reflect on how "the things you want in life/you have to really need." That is, on Silver and Gold, Sufjan uses Christmas not for diversion but to consider the terrible questions; Christmas for Sufjan isn't escapism anymore, but confrontation.
In that same vein, while most the tracks on Songs for Christmas are just a much needed breather from supermarket radio, "Barcarola (You Must Be a Christmas Tree)" by contrast is a bona fide epic. It is a slow-burning build-up that uses the inevitable loss of the yearly Yuletide as a sublime meditation on the ephemerality of existence. It isn't just one of Sufjan's best Christmas songs, but one of his best songs period. It was at this point on Silver and Gold that I realized I'd stumbled onto something special.
Further highlights: the freewheeling, ecstatic "Christmas Woman" and slightly-unhinged "I Am Santa's Helper"; the extra lyrics interspersed into "Angels We Have Heard on High" ("Is it power and wealth you're after?" "The counting and commotion," "Where dreams become your greatest danger...") that I rank among the hymn's most inspired versions; the techno-turns of "Good King Wenceslas" (which segues into Prince's "Alphabet Street," of all things); his brooding, minor-chord rendition of "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"; his seemingly-straightforward "We Need A Little Christmas" that really foregrounds the song's inherent desperate lyrics: "Because I've grown a little meaner/grown a little colder/grown a little sadder/grown a little older..."
These selections can only give a scattered sampling of this dazzling boxset. Really, I could write a dissertation on this album. Contrasted against the dull uniformity of most easy-cash-in Christmas collections, Silver and Gold is a staggering roller-coaster of diversity and daring that saves the best for last: Sufjan caps off this tour de force years-in-the-making with a masterstroke that shouldn't work at all, but totally does, "Christmas Unicorn"
This song, by all rights, should just be campy, ridiculous, bloated, "so-bad-its-good," so-twee-it's-insufferable, etc; but that magnificent scoundrel Sufjan Stevens not only makes this song work, but transcend. Sufjan's Christmas Unicorn is "a symbol for original sin," "a pagan heresy," "a tragical Catholic shrine," "a mythical mess," "a construct of your mind," "hysterically American," "a frantic shopper and a brave pill popper," and "I know you're just like me." It doesn't take an English major to realize that Sufjan isn't describing a Christmas unicorn at all, but just Christmas itself--which in turn describes us. The Unicorn is the fun-house mirror that distorts to reveal, and doesn't even have to distort that much.
"But it's alright," he still sings repeatedly, "I love you." Because for everything that's absolutely wrong with Christmas--and for everything that Christmas reveals is wrong with us--our materialism, shallowness, selfishness, short-sightedness, hypocrisy, greed, etc--Sufjan still loves Christmas, warts and all, and that includes us. God in all His infinite mercy could be singing "Christmas Unicorn": for He sent His Son that first Christmas specifically because He knew we are all terrible, awful, hypocritical, a bunch of unrepentant rapscallions--but it's alright, He loves us anyways. Sufjan thoroughly understands the true meaning of Christmas, and all the awful implications that that entails.
And then for his coup de grace, Sufjan Stevens overlaps the extended chorus line of "Find the Christmas Unicorn" with the chorus from Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again." This is a stroke of genius: for the love that brings us together will also tear us apart; the Christmas that enlivens us will also break our hearts; what we love most will most hurt us; what's born must die just as what dies must resurrect, and the great secret is that these are all causes not for mourning, but celebration! Sufjan Stevens' great revelation here is that the purest, most perfect expression of the Spirit of Christmas was in a Joy Division song all along.
Such has been the transformative effect of Silver and Gold on me that my relationship with other Christmas music has even been redeemed. I can now listen to Bing Crosby un-ironically again (albeit still in limited doses); the Mormon Tabernacle Choir blows my mind once more. Low and Joshua James and John Lennon and The Kinks and Songs for Christmas are all part of my yearly Yuletide tradition now. But it's Silver and Gold that I've been waiting for the most all year long. Last year when I set out on a quest to find Christmas music I don't hate, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams thanks to Sufjan. I hope you've clicked on the links and enjoyed all these wonderful tracks. This Christmas, Love will tear us apart again--but it's alright, I love you.
Thanks Jacob! I have enjoyed Songs for Christmas for the last few years, and I finally got Silver & Gold. Thanks for the guide, I was feeling nervous after the weak middle part, but those were some great songs at the end.
ReplyDeleteFavorites: Do You Hear What I Hear?, followed by Christmas in the Room.
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