Favorite holiday song?
I go from hating all the Christmas music (I’ll Be Home for Christmas - kill me now) to enjoying it (Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree - yes, I am LAME). But I’m pretty peeved that you never hear this holiday classic from the Pogues and the late Kirsty MacColl in the US:
That song is so sick - in good and bad ways. My favorite psychotherapist has this to say about the lyrics:
This is a description of classic codependency in a relationship. It reminds me of a Beckett play where the bond between two people is forged by mutual hatred and scorn rather than respect and love. It’s the result of years of disappointed expectations. The psychoanalyst Harold Boris once wrote an essay called “On Hope,” where he says that hope is toxic. Hope totally ignores what happens in the present and focuses on one’s life in the future. Embedded is the hope that someday in the future, the other person will come through, which makes the pathological bond in the present justifiable, because neither party wants to give up what could happen in the future, so the bond is inextricable. They’re saying, “I am nobody without you; all I have is my hatred of you. The future could be better, so let’s keep hope alive.” It’s amazing how many relationships are based on that premise.
What’s your favorite holiday song?
Filed under: Life
Ah, but it’s been on my Christmas mix for many many years now, and I’ve rarely traveled outside of the United States. Love that song and love reading what your favorite psychotherapist has to say about it! Happy holidays, Jackie!
Quite a lot of good Brit Xmas songs don’t make it over here, I was surprised (eg. Slade!- who could not notice them?)
But good choice, that’s on my annual playlist too, oddly heartwarming song despite the grimness.
OMG, Slade! I have a real thing against Noddy Holder and his horrific Dudley accent, but even *I* miss that damn song. Good point, Alice.
I would be tempted to say “It’s just a song”, and not worry too much about the sentiments in the lyrics, but that is perhaps just me. As for songs that the Pogues perform with someone else, might I suggest “Haunted”, which is performed with Sinead O’Connor. (At least, the version I prefer is. There is an ealier version sung by the Pogues then bass playerCait O’Riordan). This one is a very straightforward lovesong with not much to read into it, I think, but I love the song.
I’ve done a lot of Christmas shopping online, mainly to avoid having to hear “Stop The Cavalry” by Jona Lewie in shops, but I don’t think I’ll ever not like the Nat King Cole one about chestnuts roasting on an open fire, even though it discriminates against kids over the age of 92.
How the hell can you ever go wrong with Nat King Cole? Unless his daughter’s involved, I mean.
I do love the 1950s - Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Blue Note, Dean Martin, Ellington, Basie and so on. Although in Britain in the 1950s I believe that rationing was still so strict that you were only able to buy an egg if you could complete the sentence, “My family deserve to go some way towards remedying this horrific absence of vitamin D because”…in 12 words or less.
1950s fashion was so wonderful, too - all those nipped-in waists and A-line skirts. I watch Donna Reed and Leave It to Beaver just for the dresses and aprons.