Day 5
Cracker –
Merry Christmas Emily
(Warning: NSFW Language)
Learn / Hear More: Series Intro / Archive of Previous Days
“I still think about you, do you still think about me?”
As much a rumination on a relationship that long ago hit the skids as a true holiday song, “Merry Christmas Emily” is one of a special breed of holiday songs that uses the holiday season as a framing device. Santa, Frosty, and the gang need not report for duty on this one.
This is also a Christmas song that takes place in a non-traditional setting, at least for holiday songs: under California palm trees in the 80 degree heat. Not to mention taking place in a haze of wine, pills, public arguments, and longing.
(For me, living in the northeast, it still trips me out that a LOT of folks don’t have the “White Christmas” that I’ve always known. Wearing shorts and drinking outside on Christmas day? I can’t even imagine.)
Musically, the riff-heavy work of guitarist Johnny Hickman is a perfect embodiment of the angst beneath of the surface of the melancholy and humor in David Lowery’s lyrics. This is peak Cracker: the yin and yang of Lowery and Hickman backed by an ace cast of players. (That bass line = fire.)