Science fiction author John Scalzi and singer-songwriter Matthew Ryan release a new Christmas song for 2020 and beyond.
Days before Christmas, singer-songwriter Matthew Ryan and science fiction author John Scalzi have released a holiday gift with a free download of their new Christmas song entitled “Another Christmas (Until I Am There With You).” It is a special holiday song for this difficult year, offering hope and a reminder we need to keep looking ahead.
Scalzi explained that while dealing with an illness that was likely Covid-19, he found it difficult to work on his current novel. So, he decided to try something different in writing a Christmas song.
He continued, “I wrote words that reflected where I was in this winter season, missing family and friends and looking toward when we could all be together again. And when I was done I looked at what I wrote, and I thought ‘This kind of feels like a Matthew Ryan song.’ So I got in touch with Matthew. He took a jumble of words and made them beautiful. He didn’t have to, but he did, and I’m grateful.”
So, Scalzi concluded, “This is from both of us to all of you. It has love and hope in it. May it help you through the end of a long year, and into a better year for all.”
The song fits perfectly for this year (“I know this year is hard for you / It feels like it’s meant to break us”), and you may find it bringing a tear or two. But it is also timeless, as we all have encountered our own individual bad years, longing for something in the past or the future.
Yet, this year, for our collective grief, “Another Christmas (Until I Am There With You)” is a wonderful holiday gift. “So have some faith it won’t be long / Until we’re once again together.”
“Another Christmas (Until I Am There With You)” is available for free download on Bandcamp until New Year’s Day 2021. I’ve already added it to my Christmas music collection, looking forward to hearing it years from now and thinking of how we made it through this year.
Listen to John Prine’s “Silent Night, All Day Long” as we reflect back on a difficult year with guarded hope for the coming year.
The world faced numerous losses this year. Although it is part of the human condition that we lose loved ones every year, this year was collectively difficult as we were struck by a pandemic that was not even on many of our minds one year ago today. As we watched the numbers climb on our television screens, we could lose track of the incalculable individual personal tragedies, largely because taking it all in would be too much to bear. The affected people we knew brought the impact home. And people in the spotlight killed by Covid, like Charley Pride, might bring together a divided country in unified grieving, if only for a moment.
One of the earlier deaths of a national figure occurred in April, when singer-songwriter John Prinepassed away from complications related to Covid-19. From his lyrics and his warmth, many of us felt a special personal connection to Prine, even if we had only heard his music and seen him on stage.
And so it seems appropriate that for this Christmas, we remember those we lost and reflect on the coming year with one of Prine’s perfect Christmas songs from his 1993 albumA John Prine Christmas, “Silent Night All Day Long.”
We held hands and stared at the lights on the tree, As if Christmas was invented for you and for me; When the angel on the treetop requested a song, We sang, “Silent Night” all day long.
Even as we are reminded, through memories of a year ago, that we can never know what tragedies and joys await us in the new year, we look forward to this coming year with guarded hope. As we persist through this winter, we pray for the changes from the new vaccines, new leadership, and the coming seasons.
And most of all we keep our faith that, as in the images of love in John Prine’s song, somehow we will get through it all together.
Steve Earle’s 1988 Copperhead Road album ends very differently than it begins. The album starts with the hard rock title track about a Vietnam veteran who — similar to his bootlegging father and grandfather — ends up growing illegal drugs. The album ends, by contrast, with a Christmas song, “Nothing But a Child.”
Earle originally wrote “Nothing But a Child” for the Oak Ridge Boys, which explains why it may sound a little out of place on the album. He knew the country group were putting out an album and tried writing a Christmas song for them.
With that deadline, Earle composed “Nothing But a Child” in July. Trying to find the Christmas spirit during the summer, he thought of the connection between the baby of the Christmas story and his own child.
After his song was rejected for the Oak Ridge Boys, Earle was putting the finishing touches on Copperhead Road. So, he decided to add this new song to his album. He put together a group to record it, and also called in Maria McKee (formerly of Lone Justice), who was in Nashville to record with U2. And, on a day that was “hot as Hell,” according to Earle, they recorded “Nothing But a Child.”
“Nothing But a Child” does begin with the Christmas scene of the Wise Men following a star. But coming upon the baby Jesus Christ, “They scarce believed their eyes, they’d come so many miles / And this miracle they prized was nothing but a child.”
From there, one may see how the song’s inspiration comes more from Steve Earle’s fatherhood than from any religious sentiment. He laments how “nothing but a child” can guide a weary world and allow all of us to recall being children ourselves again. There is something about remembering how we saw life as children that may change one’s perspective on what is important to us today.
So, “Nothing But a Child” is really a song about the faith to get through another day with hope in our hearts. It is a Christmas song the way Christmas can be celebrated in various ways by people of different religions — or no religion. And in doing so, finding something common and affirming in the traditions connected to the image of a baby in a manger thousands of years ago.
Perhaps the non-Christmas aspect of song partly about Jesus’s birth is part of the reason that none of the covers of the song approach the quality of performances by Earle, who has battled his own demons and started over more than once in his life. People who have covered the song include Kathy Mattea (on her 1993 Christmas album Good News), Robin & Linda Williams (also on a Christmas album), The Trail Band (in a rendition evocative of Earle’s versions), and various performances in churches (by congregations and choirs and solo performers). Yet, treating “Nothing But a Child” as a Christmas or religious song dilutes its universal message.
Earle’s song has always touched me in the way it connects us through our hopes. This connection makes the song fit better on an album with troubled characters with broken hearts rather than on an album with bells, Santas, and sleighs. And for me, in a year of trials that included losing two of my best friends, it reminds me of how I can still be hopeful in the upcoming year where my wonderful wife and I will soon be joined by another soul.
May you discover hope this season, seeking awe in whatever form, finding another chance allowed. Merry Christmas.
What is your favorite Christmas song that is not really a Christmas song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Merry Christmas to our readers who celebrate the holiday. Today’s Christmas song is “Christmas in Washington” by Steve Earle. The song first appeared on his El Corazón (1997) album, which is one of my all-time favorite records.
As Earle explains in this Austin, Texas performance from 2000, the song is about some of his heroes. Written in the wake of President Bill Clinton’s election in 1996, Earle explains his longing for real progressive change. He invokes the names of people like Woody Guthrie, Emma Goldman, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
It has been more than twenty years since Earle wrote the song. But it seems even more timely this holiday season.
There’s foxes in the hen house; Cows out in the corn; The unions have been busted, Their proud red banners torn; To listen to the radio You’d think that all was well; But you and me and Cisco know It’s going straight to hell.
Happy holidays. Leave your two cents in the comments.
The song “The Little Drummer Boy,” written in 1941, led to a classic 1960s TV holiday special as well as some iconic versions of the song.
This post examines the TV special and the story behind the song, “The Little Drummer Boy.” The TV show The Little Drummer Boy (1968) was always one of my favorite Christmas specials. The holiday special was a Rankin/Bass production that featured two Hollywood legends, with actress Greer Garson narrating the special and actor Jose Ferrer providing the voice for one of the characters. Yet, unlike other TV specials, it is no longer shown on network TV and has been relegated to ABC Family since 2006.
A Darker Holiday Classic
Part of the reason The Little Drummer Boy may not be as beloved as other specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) is that except for the title song, the music is not as memorable as it is in some other shows. But the main reason the show is the poor step-brother of Christmas specials is that the story of the angry little boy Aaron was darker than many other annual Christmas specials.
The darkness is first found in the song “The Little Drummer Boy,” which has a melancholy sound around the rhythm of the drum. The title makes it sound like a happy song, and nothing sad really happens in the song, but there is a sad aspect of the story.
Unlike many other Christmas songs about the joy and miracle of Christ’s birth, “The Little Drummer Boy” humanizes the baby Jesus, connecting him to other smiling babies. This reminder of the human aspect of the baby foreshadows the human suffering he would find at Calgary.
The TV show further reminds us of the future suffering by featuring the boy’s lamb facing death before being “resurrected.” Few Christmas songs and specials capture the suffering and death aspect of the Christ story. They instead focus on the joy of birth along with other seasonal reminders like bells and elves. And as a kid, who wants to be taught a lesson at Christmas about hate and love?
When I started writing this post, the entire episode was available on YouTube but it has since been taken down. Instead, here is the end of the show:
The Creators of the TV Special
New Yorker Romeo Muller wrote the screenplay that Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass made into The Little Drummer Boy TV special. Muller also wrote the screenplays for such holiday TV classics as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (1970), and Frosty the Snowman (1969).
Like The Little Drummer Boy, each of Muller’s specials have a sadness underlying the happy endings, giving each a depth and complexity. That depth may help explain why we still return to these shows even as adults. Heck, apparently, Libertarians love “The Little Drummer Boy” holiday special too.
The Song “The Little Drummer Boy”
Regarding the song, American composer and music teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis wrote the song we know as “The Little Drummer Boy” in 1941, although it was originally known as “Carol of the Drum.” There are a number of good versions. On YouTube you can find a variety of covers ranging from a version by Jimi Hendrix to one by Faith Hill to Grace Jones performing for Pee Wee Herman.
Surprisingly, though, there are not as many recent classic versions as there are for some other Christmas songs, perhaps because “The Little Drummer Boy” is more religious than some of the other holiday songs. Still, Bob Seger recorded a memorable version for the original A Very Special Christmas album, and below he performs the song in concert.
More recently, Justin Bieber and Busta Rhymes created a version of “Little Drummer Boy” that at least some think is one of the worst Christmas recordings of all time. But the kids seem to like it. You may judge for yourself.
The Crosby-Bowie Version of “The Little Drummer Boy”
But perhaps the most famous version is from another TV show, Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas (1977). When David Bowie, who was a fan of Bing Crosby was asked to sing ‘The Little Drummer Boy,” he was not happy because he did not think the song suited his voice. So, songwriters Buz Kohan, Larry Grossman, and Ian Frasier wrote “Peace on Earth” to go with the song as a counterpoint melody.
We are drawn to this Bowie-Crosby version because of the odd pairing of singers. Also, during a still tumultuous time following the divisions created by Watergate and the Vietnam War, the nation found a healing plea from two people of vastly different generations singing about “Peace on Earth.”
But we stay and return again and again to this version simply because it is a beautiful rendition of the song.
Crosby and Bowie recorded their version in a TV studio in September 1977, but Crosby never got to see the reaction to the duet. Between the recording and the first broadcast of the special on November 30, 1977, Crosby had died on October 14.
Finally, the Bowie-Crosby version is so iconic and well-loved, that when Will Ferrell (as David Bowie) and John C. Reilly (as Bing Crosby) tackled a reenactment for Funny or Die, they kept the humor subtle and played much of the segment straight. Thus, they created a humorous segment that also is a tribute to the classic duet, to the holiday, and to the meaning of Katherine Kennicott Davis’s song. Pa rum a-pum pum pum.
Perhaps the song and TV special will forever carry a melancholy aura of Christmas. With a song written during a time World War II was spreading, and with an American TV special that first aired the year Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were killed, our memories of the song and TV show will always tie it to a dark time. Yet, the song has always also provided some hope. Recognizing some of the challenges of faith and the depression many face at Christmas time, the song and special allow a child, and a smile, to give us a simple gift.
Happy holidays! What is your favorite version of “The Little Drummer Boy”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
album, and below he performs the song in concert.
