I will do a happy, traditional Christmas song tomorrow. But today, I wanted to do something different.
“Christmas Eve Can Kill You” is a reminder that for a lot of people, Christmas is a sad, lonely time. Think of the huge numbers of homeless people who are cold and lonely at a time of extravagance and “good cheer”.
It’s about a man hitchhiking on Christmas Eve, and getting ignored, so he has to trudge in the snow, alone.
The song is very much an Everly Brothers standard template, which is a good thing. It’s obviously a melancholy song, but very beautiful. It’s a country-esque instrumental, with guitar fingerpicking, and a mournful steel guitar. The Everly Brothers’ harmony singing is wonderful here, and the story is expressed movingly.
A line like “take pity on the stranger in the cold” makes its meaning pretty clear…
The song was written by David Linde, and released by the Everly Brothers in 1971.
A thought provoking take on Christmas.