Every year, people turn up the volume on Christmas songs to cheerfully celebrate the holiday season. The tunes touch on topics like family, love, gifts, and togetherness. Many Christmas songs turn away from the warmth of the holiday, however. Here are seven songs for when you want to embrace the bluer shades of the season.
‘That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!’ by Sufjan Stevens
Many of the songs in Sufjan Stevens’ extensive Songs For Christmas have a level of melancholy to them. Lyrically, “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever” leans into the heartbreak. In the song, Stevens writes of memories of sledding, but the second verse brings out a very different side to the holiday.
“Our father yells, throwing the gifts in the wood stove, wood stove / My sister runs away, taking her books to the schoolyard, schoolyard,” he sings.
The song ends on a grim note.
“Silent night, holy…
