Staff Playlist #2 - Christmas

Here at No Ripcord, we’re pretty busy putting lists of our favourite albums into a computer that runs all sorts of complicated algorithms to bring you end of year features. However, we’ve still found the time to compile a mini-playlist of some of our favourite songs for this time of year. Some are traditional Christmas classics, some are simply more evocative of winter; we hope you enjoy them all.

Released last December, Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) was Miss Marling’s first tentative step into what is too often the bland tundra of festive singles. Instead, this is just an undeniably beautiful track set in deep mid-winter; feeling more like the cold January light of the new year than the heart-warming notions of Christmas itself. Joe Iliff

 

Almost more exciting than Christmas itself is the moment you finish school, college or work for the holidays and the festivities can begin. This song captures that moment perfectly as well as the anticipation that comes with it. There’s traffic as far as the eye can see, he’s “top to toe in tailbacks” (a fantastic alliterative phrase to say aloud) but it doesn’t matter; soon he’ll be home and Christmas can start. Joe Rivers

 

I can’t imagine how hard it is to write and perform a new song that finds a permanent spot in the Christmas canon, given that every songwriter smelling royalties in perpetuity and every singer hearing their own voices echoing down through the ages takes shot after shot at it, year after year.  Chrissie Hynde actually pulled it off back in 1983, with a little help from the chiming guitar of Robbie McIntosh.  The lesson?  Keep it simple, talk about snow rather than all that Kris Kringle shit, and hire Robbie McIntosh and tell him to bring his chorus pedal! Alan Shulman

 

I spent Christmas 2008 in Sheffield on my own. I was working nights at the hospital and had endured a pretty horrendous shift on Christmas Eve. Driving round to a friend's house for Christmas dinner the following day, I remember playing this because it was the only Christmas-related music I had on my iPod at the time. Needless to say, it fit the mood perfectly. If you're alone this Christmas, dig out Low's excellent Christmas album and get yourself into the festive mood. David Coleman

 

There's always been a surplus of "joy to the world" and "tra-la-las" for gloomy loners around Christmas, but since the mid-2000s, there's been a surge in the production of cripplingly depressive holiday music, courtesy of acts like Okkervil River, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and The Magnetic Fields, whose frontman Stephen Merritt pens lyrics like, "Oh Mr. Mistletoe, wither and die / You useless weed, for no one have I." Michael Skinnider

 

Whatever you think of his most recent musical endeavours, there's just no denying Sufjan Stevens' talent for turning out impressive festive tunes. I can't think of a contemporary artist from any genre who's embraced the season with as much zeal as Sufjan. The Songs for Christmas collection features a number of traditional carols alongside some original compositions from the first half of the 2000s, of which this is my personal favourite. A tale of domestic unrest set to the contrasting sounds of banjos, bells, and gentle harmonies, Did I Make You Cry On Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It!) is also notable for having the best Christmas-related song title ever. David Coleman

 

Joni longs to escape the weighty emotional ties and commercialized gaiety brought out by the Christmas season. The song begins with a theme reminiscent of Jingle Bells which resurfaces several times throughout the arrangement. River is simultaneously lovesick and hopeful, striking and familiar; Joni's voice is icy and pure yet raw with emotion. Although the song is not directly about Christmas, it has become something of a modern Christmas standard - the third-most widely covered song in Mitchell's oeuvre. Sarah Lewinger

 

Why have I chosen this song? Because it’s Fairytale Of New York, and a Christmas playlist isn’t a Christmas playlist without it. Joe Rivers