Mixtape: Muddled Through
Sad accompaniment for your sad unaccompanied Christmas in quarantine.
Merry Christmas, you little gems. Mixtape club does not start in earnest until 2021, but here’s a special Christmas Eve gift from me to all you early subscribers. I suppose you could call it an Eve’s Drop. You shouldn’t, but you could.
Listen on Spotify: Muddled Through
This is a mixtape made up of weird, sad, and lonely Christmas songs for what promises to be a weird, sad, and lonely Christmas. The aim is not to drive you, our dear loyal listener, deeper into depression, but rather to meet the mood and provide some companionship. After all, misery loves accompaniment.
Muddled Through contains 20 tracks and clocks in at 60-minutes. Personally, I prefer a blind first listen, but you’ll find a track-by-track write-up below in the liner notes. As always, these songs are meticulously sequenced for your listening pleasure, so keep your grubby mitts off that shuffle button, you animal.
I hope this music finds you safe, sane, and helps you through the holidays. If you like it, share with your friends. There is more interesting stuff to come from people who are more interesting than me.
Listen on Spotify: Muddled Through
Liner Notes
SIDE A
01. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town — Ramsey Lewis Trio
Obviously the definitive rendition of this song belongs to Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (thank you for asking), but this version was included to set the tone—musically, not lyrically. There are no lyrics. It’s an instrumental. And this album, Sound of Christmas, is the best instrumental jazz Christmas album that’s not called A Charlie Brown Christmas.
02. I’ll Be Home For Christmas (If Only In My Dreams) — Frank Sinatra
This mix was built around four sad Christmas standards: “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” “White Christmas,” “Blue Christmas,” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. There are countless renditions of each, but I used Sinatra’s version here because you need some Sinatra on your Christmas mixtape and because he does this captivating thing in his vocal performance where he sings a beat behind the backing music. It’s not off-beat, but it doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go—kind of like this year. I also thought it was important to open with Sinatra considering song I chose as a closer.
03. The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot — Nat King Cole
This song is so unapologetically and horribly sad that it becomes pitifully charming and funny. Just because these are sad and lonely Christmas songs doesn’t mean they have to make you feel sad and lonely.
04. Just A Lonely Christmas — The Supremes
Just a desperately needed pick-me-up and pace change.
05. Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day — Brenda Lee
You know Brenda Lee because she sings “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.” She did such a phenomenal job singing that song that nobody has ever bothered to listen to another rendition of it. Well, this song is so good nobody has even bothered to record another rendition of it.
06. I Want To Come Home For Christmas — Marvin Gaye
Shifting into the seventies for a little here. This one almost got cut because it’s maybe a little too on the nose—the red nose, if you please!—but I couldn’t do it.
07. River — Joni Mitchell
One of those rare Christmas songs that’s not necessarily just a Christmas song, but rather just a good song set during Christmas. This is music version of Die Hard.
08. Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis — Tom Waits
This is the obligatory quiet piano part of the mixtape. It seemed like a good idea to liven it up with a touch of Tom.
09. Remember (Christmas) — Harry Nilsson
Every mixtape needs a touch of Nilsson. This slot belonged to Nilsson’s cover of “Snow” by Randy Newman until the very last minute. Both songs fit, but the schmaltzy sadness of “Remember” edged out the just-plain-sadness of “Snow”.
10. 7 O’Clock News / Silent Night — Simon & Garfunkel
A button on the quiet piano section—and also Side A. This one is ripe for a modern day recording.
SIDE B
11. Christmas Will Break Your Heart — LCD Soundsystem
Early on, this mixtape was halfway full of modern indie music. This is the only one that survived. Sorry, Sufjan.
12. Someday At Christmas — Stevie Wonder
Christmas songs are ubiquitous, but genuinely excellent original Christmas songs are rare. This is one of the rare ones. And it’s not even Stevie Wonder’s best.
13. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) — John Lennon & Yoko Ono
This pairs well with the previous track; they’re both exceedingly hopeful songs that are also painfully realist.
14. Christmas Eve Can Kill You — Everly Brothers
A run of country songs close out this mixtape because nobody writes sad songs like those country boys and girls do.
15. December Day — Willie Nelson
One of the only songs on here that’s not specifically about Christmas. Willie Nelson can make somethin’ out of nothin’. He can also make magic out of just about anything.
16. Pretty Paper — Glen Campbell
When I found this song, I cut almost all the modern stuff out of this mixtape to make room for more country. My favorite transition on this mix is the way the delicate closing lines of this song run right into the sloppy heartache of...
17. Blue Christmas — Elvis Presley
It’s the definitive version of this song because it’s very sad and very pathetic, but in a very fun way.
18. Ringing The Bells For Jim — Johnny Cash
Nobody sings about people dying for no reason better than Johnny Cash. ‘Tis the season, after all. My second favorite transition on this mix is the way the bells at the end of this track play into...
19. White Christmas — Andy Williams
There are countless interesting takes on this standard. I almost used Oscar Peterson’s piano rendition, but the lyrics are too important. I love The Drifters take, but it—and Dean Martin’s—felt a little too silly. Otis Redding’s take (“Mayonnaise, mayonnaise, be so merry, merry and bright!”) is probably my favorite—and when is it not?—but it’s a little too merry and bright.
Andy Williams owns one Christmas song: “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. It happens to be most gaudy and insufferable song you will listen to all year. But that’s why that song works. His take on “White Christmas,” however, is soft, unadorned, and restrained. And that’s why I like it.
20. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas — Judy Garland
This mixtape is built around this specific recording of this specific song. It closes the mix because it didn’t work as an opener and I didn’t want it to get lost in the middle. Garland’s take is not the most popular rendition, despite being the original, but the lyrics are inescapable this year: “Someday soon we all will be together if the fates allow. Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”
In 1957, Sinatra had the lyric changed to “hang a shining star upon the highest bough”. The story goes that he told the guy who wrote the song: “The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?” I love this anecdote because of the audacity of Sinatra—insisting the songwriter rewrite the lyrics of an arguably perfect song to accommodate a stupidly generic album title that could have easily been changed instead. I also love this anecdote because he uses the phrase “jolly up” as a verb. Love that. Wonder if it works as a noun, too?
That’s that then. These mixtapes won’t normally have long track-by-track explications like this one, but they will have write-ups with the mixtape maker.
I hope you enjoyed. If you did, please subscribe and think about telling a friend. They’ll think you’re so cool. Plus, it’s a great last minute Christmas present.
More to come in January. Until then, I hope this has been a pleasant jolly up.
Cheers.