Christmas song #20:

Sufjan Stevens--Well, a bunch of songs

Sufjan Stevens--Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing



Sufjan Stevens--I Saw Three Ships



Sufjan Stevens--The damn title is listed in the YouTube video



I'm copping out again, because Stevens put out a compilation of about 40 songs, and it's hard to choose just one. I mean, I could spread them out over a couple days, but I'm not gonna.

Anyway, the backstory of this compilation is this: from about 2001-2006. Sufjan recorded a bunch of holiday--related EPs, given to friends and family as gifts... while secretly planning a killer Christmas compilation to be released on the unwitting public at the peak of his powers. It was then released in 2006. Apparently he also put out a couple other EPs since then, but they haven't been officially released yet, so let's just ignore them for now.

What I like a lot about the compilation is that it's a good mix of old standards and original songs, and the old standards happen to be the lovely old Christmas hymns. It's a definite treat, because it's a rare exception when a popular musician forgoes most of all the secular holiday tunes in favor of the hymns... not that there's anything wrong with them, but the hymns have a particular loveliness to them. And they're all mostly wonderfully arranged here.

The first song I've included is pretty simple, with just some simple acoustic strumming, a little hint of piano, and soft vocals--essentially it lets the melody make the song work, which it does. I've played this a couple times over the course of day, and every time Sara has commented on what a lovely song this is. I think she only just now realized that she was commenting about the same song every time, so I don't know how glowing of praise that is... but there you go.

"I Saw Three Ships" is probably my favorite, as any Christmas song that combines a horn arrangement with jingling bells has to be damn good. Apparently the carol comes from 17th century England, but I had never heard it before listening to it... so I assumed that it was an original by Mr. Stevens, and was all ready to crown him the king of Christmas music or something. Can't quite crown him the king for providing just a simple rendition... but again, it's quite the lovely song.

And honestly, I should have known it wasn't an original, because all the originals (like almost every other f-ing Sufjan penned song) have stupid and overlong titles. And they're all silly and more secular in nature, which I suppose gives the compilation a bit of balance. They aren't AS great as most of the hymns included--but that's because nature has preserved all the great Christmas hymns and weeded out the crappy ones. He gives it a pretty good go, at the very least. "Elf Dance" at the very least includes a lyric lamenting the fact that K-Mart is closed for the holidays, so... so it's offering a new perspective in Christmas songs previously unexplored.

I mean, there might be a whole collection of retailer-based Christmas songs that exists on some marketer's iTunes, but I haven't heard it. Nor do I really want to.