(All fine images by the Drifter)
In the Year of Our Lord 2025, many good-hearted folks can indeed be excused for being cynical about Christmas music.
So much of it (like so much else in our society) is used for nothing but Sell, Sell, Sell; and so much of it has a quality of sincerity which matches the sincerity of Amber Heard on the witness stand (sorry Amber).
But as Scrooge and the Grinch (among others) have eternally reminded us, the real spirit of Christmas is not meant to end on the day when the Christmas shopping is over.
The real spirit of Christmas is supposed to be about the way you live your life all the year ’round.
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In this short little essay/column, The Drifter shall offer brief musings upon four Christmas songs that can be enjoyed and returned to all the year ’round.
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The first song is “Samson in New Orleans,” by Leonard Cohen, from his 2014 album Popular Problems, a brilliant album all the way ’round.
Leonard was 80 when this record was released. His final, triumphant world tour had ended in 2013, but Leonard wasn’t finished making art, and he wouldn’t be finished making art until he was finished being here in the flesh in autumn of 2016 (and maybe he continues to do so elsewhere even now).
“Samson in New Orleans” is not an official Christmas song. But it should be thought of as one.
This song so much reminds me of John Milton’s great poem Samson Agonistes that it makes me think Cohen must’ve been familiar with Milton’s poem. If he wasn’t familiar with it, it was a familiar case of two great artists coming to the same idea on their own, a common phenomenon, which justifies Tolstoy’s famous quote about art’s core being about linkages, connections through time.
This song contains these lines: “The king so kind and solemn / He wears a bloody crown / So stand me by that column / Let me take this temple down.”
Leonard was a practicing Jew, but he also made a call many times for his people to remember that Jesus was one of their own. As such, he was a Christian in everything but name, as well as a Jewish Buddhist.
Listen to the song. It explains why we should follow the real Jesus, and what doing that really means.
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When Bob Dylan released his Christmas album Christmas in the Heart in 2009, many people made fun of him. And indeed, much of the album was made in the spirt of Christmas fun. But some of it is deadly serious.
Dylan’s version of “Little Drummer Boy” is one such performance.
If you listen to this song in a highly advanced flow state, or with your favorite medicinal substances enhancing (not impeding) your imagination, it will take you back 2,000 years.
The song contains the line, “Little baby…I am a poor boy too.”
It reminds us that the real Jesus was nothing if not a law-breaker, a rule-smasher, a son of the lower classes who was smarter than everyone in the upper classes and who stood on the side of the downtrodden and oppressed his entire life, even though he could have easily joined the other side any time he wanted (which is the symbolism of the devil offering him the whole world if he would only bow down and kiss the devil’s feet – which, of course, he wouldn’t).
Like Cohen, Dylan is a Christian Jewish person or a Jewish person with an unbelievably deep feeling for Jesus.
He knows that one thing does not preclude, nor exclude, the other, and that goes for everyone.
(“All Religions Are One,” wrote William Blake over 200 years ago. You would have thought the human race might’ve caught up to him by now.)
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Now that all the members of The Band are gone from the world (in the flesh, anyway), anything by them becomes that much more beautiful.
But “Christmas Must Be Tonight” has always been one of their most beautiful songs, a song so beautiful it brings sadness and joy, tears and quiet internal laughter, at the same time.
Rink Danko’s voice is gorgeous in this song. Robbie Robertson never wrote better lyrics.
Its first words are, “Come down to the manger, / See the little stranger…”
Everyone in The Band knew deeply why it’s appropriate to call Jesus “The Stranger.”
It’s a knowledge that has been lost by mainstream culture in the USA.
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Finally, one more song, which, like “Samson in New Orleans,” is not an official Christmas song but should be seen (and heard) as one.
Toward the end of his life, Harold Bloom was asked to name his own personal favorite song of all time.
His answer was, “The Weight,” by The Band.
Saragun Springs 
Hello Drifter
Those are top selections. For some reason (the usual corporate reasons), outside Xmas songs that were born with the Dinosaurs, there are only four popular Xmas songs written since 1952, which, of course is Reindeershit. (I wish hell on whoever wrote the one that goes “Last Christmas I gave you…”.)
Naturally that is due to the great songs pointing out that buying more stuff to exalt Jesus is not only wrong, but is evil.
For the record my favorite is Little Town of Bethlehem. It must be sixhundred this year.
Thoughtful essay. You have set a high standard.
Merry Christmas
Leila
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LA
“White Christmas,” penned by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby after he smoked weed with Louis Armstrong, is another of my holiday favorites. There was a time when “white Christmas” had other implications for me (all about snorting coke and maybe smoking some of it) but those days are long gone.
The “Prosperity Gospel,” which states that if you work hard enough for The Man then Jesus himself will make you too rich with material splendors one day, is after all just another way to keep all the little hamsters running on their wheels. Someone figured out that you can scare them with the stick or entice them with the invisible (and never to really appear) carrot. But the best way to keep the people in chains is to use both the non-existent carrot and the waiting-in-the-wings stick.
Merry Christmas to All!
The Drifter
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Both heartening & celebratory this essay. What it is to be young – in the best sense, as exemplified by Messrs Cohen & Dylan. First rate, as always Dale.
Geraint
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An elegiac note to it too, free of the sombre, beautifully honed.
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Thank you so much, Geraint.
You are a multi-talented artist of the word, a great poet, reader, critic, commentator, fictionist, translator and interpreter at all levels. We are so lucky to have a thinker and singer of your status involved with the site.
“The Drifter”
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Hi Drifter
These sound like some good songs to ponder the meaning of Christmas. Love “The Band.” “The Last Waltz” really showcased their talent. Cool that Harold Bloom’s favorite song was, “The Weight.” I always listen closely to R. Danko’s part–magical. The whole song is.
Great descriptions of Jesus–how he took on the world and refused it. He is the meaning of the season. Last week the minister said the Christmas tree symbolized the cross. I thought it meant evergreen–like eternal. Probably means all kinds of things.
I hate seeing the heathens throw Christmas Trees in the ditches–better than couches. Then again, both provide shelter for small animals.
Nice how Blake said all religions were the same. A lot of unholy people fight holy wars that have nothing to do with God.
Another great column entry!
CJA
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Ananias
I think you’re right, the Christmas tree symbolizes both death and life. It is the cross, and it is the life which comes after all. Anyway, that is what it is for those who are quietly looking into their own hearts and thinking deeply about it. Christmas, among other things, is also a reaction to the darkest part of the year. Humans light candles and illuminate other things in order to remind themselves that the darkness never lasts forever. And truly it can be said that the darkness is greatest just before the dawn.
THE BAND is an awesome band, and they are a band who remind me of, or seem to be, American Literature itself appearing onstage, somehow. No one else in music perhaps, except maybe Dylan, can seem so much like Huckleberry Finn and his beautiful, generous, intelligent friend Jim. THE LAST WALTZ is a classic film, a piece of Americana, and even more perhaps, a piece of American history itself. (And they seem like American Literature even tho’ most of them are originally Canadian.)
The Band was never very popular in terms of record sales, and the amount of times they were able to fill huge auditoriums with adoring fans were few, to none.
But it’s kind of like what someone once said about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.
“Hardly anyone bought their record but everyone who did wanted to start a band.”
Drifting Along in Illinois,
The D
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Good Morning Drifter
The wind and cold are upon us here in Indiana.
Yes it is darkest before dawn. The Christmas season comes fast in these latter years. The Christmas tree lights are dimming, but the spirit is alive.
I’ll have to load up The Band on YouTube.
Stay warm in The Windy City!
CJA
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