Sad Christmas songs, or rather Christmas-Pathos in Music

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I'm thinking of, say,
-Lisa Germano's totally devastating 'Messages from Sophia', which just has one line about Christmas, and a brief interpolation of 'Jingle Bells'
-Stina Nordenstam's 'Soon After Christmas', which only mentions christmas in the title, but becomes that much sadder for the reference.
-Joni Mitchell's 'River', which does another interpolation of Jingle Bells
-Everything But The Girl's incredible '25th December'

so, have you any favourite Christmas-pathos songs?

― derrick (derrick), Friday, 3 December 2004 03:12 (twenty-one years ago)

"No Christmas" by The Wedding Present -- great song detailing the frayed edges of a relationship about to violently implode. Christmas isn't mentioned once, but it doesn't need to be.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 3 December 2004 03:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Prince - "Another Lonely Chrismas"

The Posies - "Christmas"

― Al (sitcom), Friday, 3 December 2004 03:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Palace - "Christmastime in the Mountains" -- it feels sad, it sounds sad, but I don't know if it actually has any more pathos imbedded in it than the average Will Oldham song. Which, I know.

― cws (cws), Friday, 3 December 2004 03:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Nina Simone's "Little Girl Blue," with its interpolation of "Good King Wenceslas."

And the Pretenders' "2000 Miles," which Geir spotlighted in his other Christmas thread.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Friday, 3 December 2004 04:24 (twenty-one years ago)

"Christmas Time is Here." The Peanuts number.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 3 December 2004 04:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Um, Last Christmas by Wham?

NO XMAS FOR JOHN QUAYS

― Chadwell O'Cheese And His Cormorants Of Futility (Ferg), Friday, 3 December 2004 04:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"A Ride" by Scud Mountain Boys, maybe "That's Entertainment" by Silkworm, but the Christmas reference in the latter is just in passing.

― Derek Krissoff (Derek), Friday, 3 December 2004 04:56 (twenty-one years ago)

"christmas" by fuzzy

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Friday, 3 December 2004 05:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"blue christmas" as sung by elvis

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 3 December 2004 05:39 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

"Christmas" by Rash of Stabbings
An unlikely yet moving sentiment about the holiday's true meaning from this Providence 80s hair metal/punk trio.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 12:38 (twenty-one years ago)

"if you were born today" by low. i'm not very religious but this song gives me goosebumps.

― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

'Meat is Murder' by the Smiths - "the turkey you festively slice...".

Can we claim 'In the Ghetto' as a Christmas song? It mentions snow, after all.

― bham, Tuesday, 21 December 2004 13:59 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

Revive! Found a video for the band I mentioned up thread. These guys had serious hair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ekgDJou6G0

― Jazzbo, Friday, 11 December 2009 15:17 (sixteen years ago)

Type O Negative - Red Water (Christmas Mourning)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9kKA698_WE

― black lightning light (herb albert), Friday, 11 December 2009 18:18 (sixteen years ago)

The ne plus ultra of Xmas bathos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ablkIgZnxXo

― mottdeterre, Friday, 11 December 2009 18:22 (sixteen years ago)

For those who wish to cry current-millennium tears this December 25th, I give you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTX0L3ds8ck

― mottdeterre, Friday, 11 December 2009 18:27 (sixteen years ago)

Finally, special honors to the Hag for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGDo1Jybs_I&feature=related

― mottdeterre, Friday, 11 December 2009 18:31 (sixteen years ago)

Can't forget New Years, neither:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVQNMACAO78

― mottdeterre, Friday, 11 December 2009 18:39 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5VrvdOizUc
^^^ Les Gray always sang it in this crap Elvis impersonator piss-take voice, thinking of the song as a joke. Until one year he spent Christmas alone and realised why some people found it genuinely sad.

― HUH? not appropriate (snoball), Friday, 11 December 2009 18:44 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNz-EiO3BRY

― clotpoll, Friday, 11 December 2009 18:45 (sixteen years ago)

four years pass...

Lots of sadness of different kinds in this Then Play Long post: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/various-artists-now-christmas-album.html

― agincourtgirl, Tuesday, 12 August 2014 14:22 (eleven years ago)

one year passes...

Dory Previn - The Crooked Christmas Star,'73

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TXQHsGSHxs

the man I love is marrying some girl he knocked up, but it's cool because he made me this cruddy Christmas ornament

― small doug yule carnival club (unregistered), Friday, 25 December 2015 17:30 (ten years ago)

zhidao.baidu.com/question/510731052.html

^I wish I could tell this Chinese message board poster that the song they overheard while shopping in 2012 is Shelleyan Orphan's 'Ice', because it's a beautiful song and none of the other posters were able to ID it. sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr626l1nnR4

― small doug yule carnival club (unregistered), Friday, 25 December 2015 17:38 (ten years ago)

six years pass...

I always think of this as "Christmas Music" (I bought it in Iceland, just before Xmas!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPrdz48eZWc

― djh, Sunday, 4 December 2022 11:49 (three years ago)

Departure Lounge, "Christmas Downer":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NQdCuh2wes

― lord of the rongs (anagram), Sunday, 4 December 2022 12:22 (three years ago)

perfect answer to this is the Tracey Thorn 'Tinsel and Lights' LP

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Sunday, 4 December 2022 12:26 (three years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX985c9z88M

miles davis + bob dorough - "blue xmas (to whom it may concern)"

― ミ💙🅟 🅛 🅤 🅡 🅜 🅑💙彡 (Austin), Sunday, 4 December 2022 14:38 (three years ago)

Denim, "I Will Cry At Christmas"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAD0Q2h6lkU

― Gulf VAR Syndrome (Tom D.), Sunday, 4 December 2022 14:41 (three years ago)

Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejOgf-19eeg

― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 4 December 2022 14:56 (three years ago)

all the Christmas songs are sad

― lets hear some blues on those synths (brimstead), Sunday, 4 December 2022 17:07 (three years ago)

Nina Nastasia - Handmade Card
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM1dHeA3S1o
Phoebe Bridgers/Merle Haggard - If We Make It Through December
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNfK819vnrQ

― JifMoose, Sunday, 4 December 2022 22:39 (three years ago)

Tom Waits, "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis"

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Sunday, 4 December 2022 22:42 (three years ago)

winner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3eHM-4DcT8

― sleeve, Sunday, 4 December 2022 22:44 (three years ago)

all the Christmas songs are sad

Yeah definitely. Like « White Christmas » is objectively depressing

― AlXTC from Paris, Sunday, 4 December 2022 22:45 (three years ago)

mojo once did this groove for one of their covermounts :

https://www.discogs.com/release/521418-Various-Blue-Christmas

― mark e, Sunday, 4 December 2022 23:10 (three years ago)

perfect answer to this is the Tracey Thorn 'Tinsel and Lights' LP

It's up there.

Recommended the Low to a new library worker the other day and they apparently obsessively played into the ground so my work here is done. As for today, it was a good rainy one for me to break out the John Fahey and right now I'm playing a later one in that vein, Sean Smith's Christmas; obviously instrumental acoustic guitar Christmas music is more contemplative than sad but it suits the mood. Also Smith does a nice job with a classic in the vein:

https://seansmith.bandcamp.com/track/christmas-time-is-here-a-meditation

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 5 December 2022 01:20 (three years ago)

https://archive.org/details/latham-christmas/The+Year+Claymation+Let+Us+Down+On+Christmas.mp3

― | (Latham Green), Monday, 5 December 2022 02:47 (three years ago)

two weeks pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faGEKXgZOEk

Rosa Mundi (aka Coil) - Christmas Is Now Drawing Near at Hand

― ArchCarrier, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 08:01 (three years ago)

anita kerr singers, "poor little jesus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPxMmqRi64Y

whole record great. staple in our home growing up.

― andrew m., Tuesday, 20 December 2022 20:02 (three years ago)

"Regenisraen" - Game Theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqFXagrENJE

"Family Life" - The Blue Nile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfnr8eYWOig

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 16:56 (three years ago)

Alan Vega, "No More Christmas Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuboDpN7HDo

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 21 December 2022 17:02 (three years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_g84WcjVc
Darleens - It's Gonna Be a Cold Cold Christmas

― corrs unplugged, Friday, 23 December 2022 08:41 (three years ago)

The Everly Brothers - Christmas Eve Can Kill You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeTpvQMVt8E

― TWELVE Michelob stars?!? (seandalai), Saturday, 24 December 2022 19:41 (three years ago)

kenny rogers, "kentucky homemade christmas"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axTbf1bntbw

― andrew m., Sunday, 25 December 2022 22:55 (three years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCEZOppYjds

― Ye Mad Puffin, Monday, 26 December 2022 01:13 (three years ago)

Marika Hackman's version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADgl9_6z5oA

At first I thought she'd tweaked the words to make it even bleaker, but no it turns out this was the original lyric as written, before it got a de-saddening rewrite for the more famous Judy Garland version.

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/history/have-yourself-a-merry-little-christmas

― "Spaghetti" Thompson (Pheeel), Monday, 26 December 2022 09:21 (three years ago)

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