Pop Music Notes

I don’t know if it’s just me, but there seems to be a lot of more talk about sad Christmas songs this year. Whether it’s a lost loved one, a lost love, or just a lonely Christmas, there’s something about this sub-genre that speaks to certain people, and I’m included in that group.

Someone asked me the other day what my other favorite Christmas songs are, and it dawned on me that two of my top 3 are sad ones. There’s “Last Christmas”, which we’ve already talked about, and then there’s “Hard Candy Christmas”, made famous by Dolly Parton in “Best Little Whorehouse In Texas”. Even though it’s a sad one, it doesn’t affect me the same way other sad songs do. There’s actually an ounce of optimism in “Candy”, even if it’s forced optimism.

One song that I don’t even think of until the holidays come around is “When Love Is Gone”, from “A Muppet Christmas Carol”. While it’s not a Christmas song per se, it’s from a Christmas movie, so you get to enjoy it here. Fun fact…this song was actually left out of the original release of “Carol”. I can’t imagine the movie without it. If you can listen to this song in its entirety and not be even slightly moved, you’re dead inside.

Moving just past Christmas towards the beginning of a New Year, we run into Dan Fogelberg, pining after love lost in “Same Old Lang Syne”. This song alone could be a “Power of a Song” entry for me, as it has multiple personal meanings, but for our purposes here, it’s yet another classic sad song that comes up in the month of December. [Sorry for the video…I didn’t like any of the live versions I found, so I’d rather put up the studio version.]