Until this song was recommended to me, I wouldn’t have associated Sia’s voice with Christmas music. Her plaintive delivery and heartbroken tone was something that felt better suited to things like series-ending-extended-death-montages than merriness and mistletoe.
But people can, of course, surprise you. Sometimes the grumpy old lady with four “NO TRESPASSING” signs on her front lawn is also the one who makes Christmas cookies for everyone on the street. Sometimes the same guy at work who reports you for going over your photocopying quota will turn around and go above and beyond for the office Secret Santa.
I’m not trying to turn this into a “try to see the best in people” kind of post.
But it’s certainly true that our understanding of people, even people we know pretty well, is based on minimal primary evidence, with huge gaps filled in by assumptions and conjecture. So if one of your goals this December is to give people a fair chance, try this: pick someone you have a middling-to-low opinion of, and see if you can find a way to sneak them some candy canes without them seeing.
And if it helps, imagine their face on the cover of this Sia album. Even if you can’t coax some positivity out of them, at least the visual will make you smile.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. Just like last week’s feature, it’s a bit unusual for a Christmas song. The lyrics are, to put it mildly, uncommonly dark for a festive track: “Happy presents for the ghosts who cry / Happiness is ours until we die.” And yet, it doesn’t take much imagination to argue that those lines are actually happy; that Christmas is a time to remember loved ones, living or dead, and that life is a fleeting moment of happiness to be grabbed hold of and enjoyed.
2. Just like last week’s feature, Greg Kurstin is involved. He co-wrote and produced Sia’s 2017 Christmas album. He seems to have a knack for ballads with female vocalists, having co-written and produced this one just two years earlier.
3. It’s hard to describe the tension and fragility of her voice on this track, but I’ll try: her voice sounds like…do you remember those old-school Christmas lights? From the pre-LED days? The big ones that got really hot? And if the wiring was wearing out they’d flicker just a bit? Yeah, that.
Recommended listening activity:
Putting Christmas lights on a house plant.
This song was suggested by a reader. Thanks, Christina!