I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET-Does Xmas Fiasco Style: We Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (2000).

We heard a song from this on WXPN the other day and Sarah bought it for me for Christmas.  I have really liked My Morning Jacket’s newer music, and I like their earlier stuff, but a little less.  This seems to fall somewhere in between.

This also seems to be about the worst actual Christmas album that I like very much.  There is virtually no Christmas feel to it, even if many of the songs feature the word Christmas somewhere.  Basically My Morning Jacket are doing their own thing, and they sound great–lengthy jams of acoustic alternative rock and Jim James’ soaring vocals.  It’s a lovely piece of music, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas (so it was nice to end the Christmas music posts with it).

There are six songs “Xmas Curtain” would be released on their second album the following year (so they made this after releasing one album!).  It is a cool song although it seems to be more about criminals than Christmas.  There are lovely harmonies and a strange steel drum sound for the melody.  “I Just Wanted to Say” is a slow guitar picked song.  It does reflect holiday sentiment: “wishing you happy holidays.” Once again gorgeous chorus and harmonies.  Although there’s a long instrumental section at the end which kind of makes it lose the Christmas spirit (the song is over 6 minutes long).

“Christmas Time is Here Again” is really the first explicit Christmas song. It’s a lovely song and kinda feel Christmasey.  Of course, if they  wanted a nice simple Christmas song it should end at 3:40.  But rather they tack on a lengthy (very pretty) instrumental section. I love what they play, but it make you lose sight of the earlier part of the song even if the lyrics do repeat again. The bells are nice at the end.

“New Morning” is a Nick Cave song, not exactly Christmasey but very pretty.  The other very Christmasey song is “Santa Claus is Back in Town.”  This is apparently an Elvis song (the backing vocals of “Chris-mussss”) give it a very fifties sound.  This could also easily end at 4 minutes, but they tack on a bunch of guitar nonsense at the end for an extra minute and a half.  These little flourishes aren’t bad, and this is clearly a fun fan record, but you’re not going to get on a Christmas compilation with all that extra business.

The final song is a “hidden track.”  It is the lengthy instrumental from “Christmas Time is Here Again” but played by itself (with the whole band).  As I said, it’s lovely.  Of course it’s fades after 2 minutes, but then gets louder and runs a total of 7 minutes–those jokesters.

[READ: December 10, 2014] The Chimes

I didn’t know this story at all.  It turns out to be more of a New Year’s story than a Christmas story, despite it being in the Christmas Books book.

The story is centered around Toby Veck, known as Trotty because of his usual walk.  Trotty is a messenger.  But his main feature is that he is obsessed with the chimes, the Bells, at the churchtower.  He believes that they speak to him.  It sounds like he sleeps out under the bells, but I gather that he actually just spends most of his time outside so he can be a messenger to others.

It is a cold cold New Year’s Eve night.  His daughter, Meg, brings him a large feast of tripe (she drags out his trying to guess what it is).  He is thrilled at the boon of such a feast.  While he is enjoying the food, she reveals that she is going to get married to her fiancee Richard the next day. Trotty seems concerned by this but before he can say anything, he is interrupted by Alderman Cute and his associate Mr Filer.  The Alderman basically gives them all a hard time.  He criticizes Trotty for eating tripe (which he says is the most wasteful of all foods?!), he criticizes the poor in general (and talks about arresting just about everyone) and he criticizes Meg and Richard for planning to get married.  He says that Richard could do much better and that if they do marry they will just wind up poor with unwanted children.  What a dick.

Then he asks Trotty to deliver a message for him to Joseph Bowely M.P.

Bowley isn’t much better.  Even though he is charitable, he is very paternalistic about it.  And he makes a big show that he is ensuring that all of his debts are cleaned out for the end of the year.  When Trotty admits that he still has some, Bowley gives him a hard time about that too.  Bowley is overheard talking about Will Fern, a vagrant whom the alderman wants to imprison.  What a bunch of dicks.

Trotty heads home, feeling pretty damned low.  On his way, he meets Will Fern (!) and his orphaned niece, Lillian. Fern was planning to talk to the alderman to set the record straight, but Trotty tells him it’s not worth it right now and invites him back to his house.

When they arrive home, Lillian immediate thinks Meg is the best, hugging her and being dear to her.  But Meg seems sad, as if the alderman convinced her not to marry Richard.

During the night, Trotty is awakened by the bells.  They seem to be calling him to the church.  He hurries there and find the door open.  So he climbs the stairs where he finds the goblins that toll the bells (!).  They yell at him saying that he has lost all faith in man (from what the alderman said and because of things he read about murders and theft in the newspaper).

They show him his future: he will fall from the bell tower stairs and die.  Richard will refuse to marry Meg and then will become an alcoholic.  Meg will always pine for him and eventually convince him to marry her, but she can’t help him and he dies, leaving her with a baby.  Will is imprisoned and Lily becomes a prostitute.  (It’s a wonderful life, indeed).  Ultimately, Meg looks to drown her baby and herself.

It was quite obvious that this was a dream (especially since it followed a year after A Christmas Carol), but I was delighted with the way that it was revealed that he was raving all night.  The ending is very happy (of course) and Dickens beseeches us all to have a good New Year and be good to all people.

I didn’t find this story to be anywhere near as moving as A Christmas Carol.  In fact I found some of it to be rather confusing and other parts to be pretty heavy-handed.  I di enjoy that he makes fun of snotty rich people though.  But the bad guys were so bad (I guess Scrooge is really bad too, but since we see him change it is more powerful) it was crazy–did people really talk like that?  I guess some people still do.  But nevertheless, it was a pleasant story and the ending was happy (the way he brought the people together at the end was nice, if not a little confusing–how did they all know each other?

But it’s a nice way to welcome in the New Year.