Last Updated on January 12, 2023, 11:59 AM | Published: December 21, 2022
December means short days, long turkey naps, and (at least about half the time in Oklahoma) cold weather.
But the winter season also means something much more divisive, even controversial. Something that enchants some people like a warm, crackling fireplace and drives others away like a house burning down.
I’m talking, of course, about holiday music.
There are plenty of diehards and apologists for the endless stream of carols and classics that come around like clockwork immediately following Halloween, but mostly you just hear the Grinchly complaints about it always being “irritating” or “too early.”
Luckily, if you fall into that latter camp that can’t possibly bear to hear another “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” a handful of spirited locals have you covered with some brand new holiday-themed tracks aimed at some different, perhaps more complex winter feelings.
Chase Kerby – “It’s Already Christmas”
Older readers will know all too well how time speeds up as the years go by. Each year starts to feel like it’s flying by faster than the one before, and it becomes easier than you ever imagined to lose time, never entirely realizing or appreciating days or weeks or months until after they’re gone.
That feeling can reach its breaking point near the end of the year, a time when people are halted in their tracks by the impending holiday and the absolute certainty that it was just Christmas only a few months ago.
As common as it’s become in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it modern world, it makes you wonder why no one has ever written a Christmas song about that feeling.
Well, now someone has, as local singer/songwriter, Big Weather frontman, and part-time Tiger (as in Beau Jennings’ backing band,) Chase Kerby dropped “It’s Already Christmas” earlier this season.
Kerby’s hushed, doubled, unmistakably Elliott Smith-y vocals lay down a heavy dose of emotional reality in a tale as simple as it is universal: the holidays are already here, the year is already drawing to a close, and all you want is to make the most of the precious few weeks that are left.
It’s a love song to the person with whom you’re wishing for more time. It’s a dirge for those sadly departed who live on in all of your best Christmas memories. It’s a call to action to stay alert and open and to stop wasting time.
It’s a lot of things at once, and it’s a testament to Kerby’s abilities as a songwriter that he can discuss so much so easily inside such a simple, approachable indie-folk song.
“It’s Already Christmas” is streaming everywhere now. Follow Chase Kerby on Instagram at @chasekerby.
Beau Jennings & the Tigers – “Midnight Service”
Speaking of Mr. Jennings and his stalwart Tigers, they also dropped a thoughtful, seasonal track espousing a different, wholly adult struggle of the holidays.
On “Midnight Service,” the lamented loss isn’t exactly time so much as the magic of Christmas that invariably fades with age.
Make no mistake, this isn’t a Christmas curmudgeon’s anthem of holiday hate. It’s a very real and very honest look at the loss of childhood wonder and the toll it can take on a person that used to relish the holiday season.
Jennings opens the track with something like a red herring of Christmas clichés and Rockwell-ian holiday family imagery, all smiles and late-night church services and waiting to see the Christmas spirits for real.
The rug doesn’t get pulled until the line “one year they just never showed / was I the first or last to know?”
It’s a festive gut-punch for anyone that grew up loving the season’s pomp and circumstance only to find out in adulthood just how stressful and demoralizing the holidays can be.
Lest the song be left on that downer note, Jennings wraps up the track with a kind of knowing resolve, the understanding that it can’t ever be the way it was, but maybe he can learn to accept and appreciate the same transitory passage of time that Kerby’s song dissects.
“Midnight Service” is streaming everywhere now. Follow Beau Jennings & the Tigers on Facebook at facebook.com/beaujenningsok and on Instagram at @beauscottjennings.
Twiggs – “Please Come Down”
For all of its hallowed and religious origins, there’s always been a certain genre of Christmas songs that are, for lack of a better word, sensual.
From “Santa Baby” to the often regrettable “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” there’s a long tradition of pleading, lonely Christmas classics with a certain feisty skip in their step.
OKC-based new-wavers Twiggs dropped a new entry into that catalog this year with “Please Come Down,” a desperate plea for love, attention, and commitment on Christmas Eve.
The result is a shockingly effective slow-jam pop track that you could probably slip quietly into an all-80s holiday playlist without anyone ever recognizing that it’s not actually 35 years old.
Atop a sexy, sax-y backdrop of tastefully blipping drum machines, chiming synth chords, and requisite sleigh bells, singer Abbey sultrily hopes for her hurried lover to stay instead of dashing off like usual back to work and leaving her lonely.
The fact that the lover she’s singing to is Santa Claus shouldn’t concern you.
“Please Come Down” is streaming everywhere now. Follow Twiggs on Facebook at facebook.com/twiggsmusic and on Instagram at @twiggsok.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
