If you're feeling a little blue this Christmas, the following selections are what I consider the most depressing Christmas songs ever written.
BYOK.
(Bring your own kleenex.)
This first one is Abba's classic Happy New Year. They sure are smiley folks while singing that they may as well lay down and die!
This song is seriously messed up. Why does the radio station play it ALL THE TIME during the Christmas season?! I give you Same Olde Lang Syne:
Depressing? Yes! Fantastic hair and fashion? Yes!
Is anything more uplifting during the festive season of Peace on Earth and Good Will To Men than little children singing about war? Of course that was John Lennon's point, I suppose. As it was also an intentional snub to Americans to call the song Happy X-mas instead of Happy Christmas.
And if your cup of holiday weeping is not yet full, drown your sorrows in The River by Joni Mitchell. You may as well, because you can't skate away on it.
Happy Christmas to all and to all a good-night!
6 comments:
I think each one of these songs has a message, Daja... one that "speaks" to many more people this time of year than you might think... or want to admit. I think each one serves a purpose & is good for some to listen to and not good for others.
I love meaningful songs. That's the one thing about music... it speaks what the heart can't say. That's why I love it so much.
Music got me through my mom's 10 month bed-bound illness here at our house. I wish I could say that God got me through but He didn't. Well, maybe He did... but if He did, it was definitely through secular music! Listening to my iTunes, with headphones on, in a room by myself as my mom was calling my name endlessly for hours & hours on end, is the ONLY thing that kept me from taking a long walk off a short pier. I listened to all kinds of music... music that was "sad" because it spoke to where I was at, at that moment in my life. It felt so good to know that a song "understood" where I was and was there too.
Then, after mom died, it was nature that healed me down to my bones... fresh air, animals, trees, sunshine, sky, clouds.
So, these songs that you deem sad or depressing just might validate someone else's feelings this time of year and they made need that validation, ya know? I think there's songs & music for everyone... in every situation... at every time of year. You apparently need the happy, joyful kind of Christmas songs & that's perfectly valid as well. I know there's plenty of them out there. I personally am not ready for the overly-cheery ones yet... if any at all. Maybe someday. I found "Christmas Canon" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra that I like real well but that's the first Christmas song I've latched on to so far this year. Will probably be the only one too.
Btw, when I type "Xmas" I mean no disrespect... it's just shorter. There's some story circulating out on the net about how the spelling of "Xmas" is connected to Christ too, just like "Christmas". I claim that story as my own. It's all in the intent, I guess.
Love ya with all my heart, sweetpea~ Andrea xoxoxoxoxo
Oh Andrea! I love you!
Perhaps you can't read my tone in my post. Although I label all these songs as depressing, I am obviously familiar enough with them that I could compile a list of secular songs! (Hey, not many of my generation can quote Joni Mitchell or Fogelberg!) I'm not a person who only listens to Christian Contempory Music. In fact, I rarely, if ever, listen to CCM. It kind of puts me to sleep to be honest.
I realize that these songs touch a nerve with a lot of people and reach them in an intimate place. I was just poking a little fun at the tendency of people (myself included!) to get mopey at Christmas.
I personally don't have a problem with Xmas because X is the Greek letter for Christ. However, about Lennen, he did do it to intentional give the finger (so to speak) to American Christians who were in an uproar over his saying that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ.
Anyway, just so you know, I'm not a secular Christmas music hater or a happy-slappy song lover. Just havin' a little fun!!!
muah!
Oh, I also wanted to say, Andrea, that I totally believe that God can speak through and work through anything--including secular music. (I don't even necessarily care for the monikers "secular" and "Christian" because Christians can write stupid songs and non-Christians can write inspired ones!)
God totally turned my brother's life around from watching an episode of House, M.D. So, whatever!
If your soul received ministry through your ipod while your mother was crossing over, than I think that is exactly right.
LOVE YOU!
*ha-ha* Isn't it funny how the written word sometimes comes out so much different than we intend? I wasn't thinking "secular" vs "Christian" music at all, when I wrote my post. Yet I think maybe I came across that way because a lot of your response is about that very topic... secular music vs. Christian. In fact, that didn't even occur to me as I typed my post.
:-)
I got a chuckle out of that and just wanted to mention.
Hope you had a wonderful day today, sweetpea. Love ya!! xoxoxo
"I don't even necessarily care for the monikers "secular" and "Christian" because Christians can write stupid songs and non-Christians can write inspired ones!"
Hear, hear!
Do you or your brother have any posts about his heart being turned by House (or, God speaking to him through the show!)? That sounds like a cool story! God will use anything!!!!
My brother blogged a bit about it here:
http://dying2self.blogspot.com/2008/10/beginning-of-end.html
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