Troubles Miles Away Playlist

My Mixtape’s A Masterpiece is a weekly feature in which a guest compiles a playlist around some theme. This week, Jon Abrams assembles 17 songs to provide comfort and increase joy during the mixed emotions of the holiday season. Read Jon’s thoughts on each song and listen along to the Spotify and YouTube playlists below.

Here is my Christmas playlist, featuring several of my very favorite artists. If you’re having a happy holiday, I hope listening to this makes it happier still. And if you’re not having such a happy holiday…man, do I hope this music can help out, even a little.

I provided “liner notes” but feel free to skip all that and just listen to the music. I won’t be upset. Promise.

1. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” by Cat Power

“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” That’s “breast,” not “beast,” and it’s a line written by a guy named William Congreve, not Shakespeare. Anyway Chan Marshall’s voice has what it takes to tame the unruly storm that goes on in my brain and heart every minute of every day. Some sounds are something you need; this is that for me. This is her Christmas song.

2. “Silent Night” by Johnny Cash

JC was very seriously and famously a Christian, which isn’t my story, but he was one who very seriously and famously struggled. And struggle, I get. What I love about JC is that I believe him when he sings. That’s all I ask for from my most favorite artists.

3. “White Christmas” by Iggy Pop

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure Iggy is fucking around here. But hey, I believe him when he fucks around.

4. “O Holy Night” by Mark Lanegan

Lanegan was the frontman for the ‘90s band Screaming Trees but has lived hard as hell in the years since—and you can hear it in his incredible voice. Now he’s kind of a drifting guest vocalist who pops up all over the place and is welcome in any genre in which he lands. Really just one of my favorite singers, and in this song in particular he does some things I didn’t even know he could do. If you’re not familiar, check him out. He’s also an insanely underrated lyricist. I could sit and read his lyrics for hours, but I don’t do that because I just end up putting on his records. (Editor’s Note: Not available on Spotify but is in the YouTube playlist below)

5. “What A Wonderful World” by Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan

To be fair I’m not up on the latest rulings, but I’m pretty sure that “Fairytale Of New York” has been cancelled, though I don’t think Shane MacGowan himself has been cancelled. So with “Fairytale Of New York” justly or cruelly taken out of the rotation, we need another Shane MacGowan duet to warm our hearts at Christmastime and while it isn’t a Christmas song, I hereby nominate this one.

6. “Christmas In The City” by Marvin Gaye

Not sure I could pick a favorite Motown singer, but if I really had to, it’d be Marvin. And if I had to pick a favorite Christmas song by him, it’d probably be “Purple Snowflakes.” But you may have heard that one before, so here’s a less familiar one, from “You’re The Man”, the posthumous album recorded in 1972 and meant to be released after “What’s Going On”. This is an instrumental track that sounds a little like Marvin’s stuff from “Trouble Man”. You can listen to this song and imagine your own ‘70s-style Christmas neo-noir movie.

7. “Christmas In Hollis” by Run-DMC

This is on everyone’s Christmas playlist at this point, but I really did grow up listening to Run-DMC and spending my Christmas Eves in actual Queens, so I hope you will allow it.

8. “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” by DMX

Did you know that DMX did this? Isn’t this great? I liked that guy a lot. See you around, DMX.

9. “Cooler Than Santa Claus” by Morris Day

I didn’t know Morris Day had a Christmas song until I actively went looking to answer the question “Does Morris Day have a Christmas song?” I knew Prince had one. (More on that in a minute…) But if Prince has one, then so too must Morris Day. If there is yin, there must be yang.

10. “Hard Candy Christmas”

This song and “I Will Always Love You” both come from THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, where Dolly’s love interest is played by Burt Reynolds. So my Christmas message to you is that every time you hear Dolly sing “I Will Always Love You,” she’s singing to Burt Reynolds. When Whitney Houston sings “I Will Always Love You,” she too is singing to Burt Reynolds. Even if you never read another word I wrote, remember this always.

11. “Christmas Song” by Mogwai

GREMLINS is a Christmas movie. It only stands to reason that a band called Mogwai should have a Christmas song. This one doesn’t have any words, but I think you’ll dig it anyway. Sounds like Christmas.

12. “If I Was Santa Claus” by Atmosphere

In this song, Slug is saying that if he had the power to, he’d give anything to the people he loves. He also says “I love giving but I'm bad at receiving,” which is how I feel and also I think it’s a sex thing. Which is also how I feel. But mainly I just feel the first thing. “If I was Santa Claus, I'd fight for the cause/ Wouldn't expect nothing in return/ I'd give you everything you want, I'd be everything you need/ And you can take my hand and I can take the lead.”

13. “Another Lonely Christmas” by Prince

This is a pretty well-known Prince B-side, but if you haven’t heard it before, rest assured the term “B-side” just means it wasn’t on an official album, not that it’s any less brilliant than any of Prince’s best songs. What you should be prepared for is that it sounds for all the world like a breakup song, where Prince is a guy singing to a girl he used to love and pretty clearly still does, but one who left him. Until almost exactly halfway through, when he reveals she’s gone forever. That wrecked me the first time I heard it. Pretty clearly still does.

14. “Jesus Was A Capricorn (Owed To John Prine)” by Kris Kristofferson

Okay so people were talking about Jesus for 1972 years before it ever occurred to anyone to think about what his zodiac sign was, and that is why Kris Kristofferson is forever a genius. Again, this is not a Christmas song, but it’s one of the great Jesus songs. Plus Kristofferson shouts out John Prine right there in the title, so it’s awesome on top of awesome.

15. “Bread & Wine” by Peter Gabriel

So this again is me trying to be cute, since it’s not a Christmas song and it’s not from a Christmas movie. It’s from Peter Gabriel’s album Passion, his score to THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, which is consistently in my top three Martin Scorsese pictures no matter how many great new ones he turns out. Again, not a Christmas movie, although it’s maybe the best movie about Jesus ever, from one of the greatest filmmakers ever, and what better time to celebrate that than Christmas?

16. “The Secret Of Christmas” by Shirley Horn

Shirley Horn is an esteemed figure in the world of jazz but I’m not sure she’s too well-known beyond it, and I would love to do my part to change that. She’s a pianist and singer whose voice and style—I was about to say she breaks my heart, but it’s more like she takes my broken heart and lovingly serenades it as she’s gluing the pieces back together so I can get back in the world to be strong enough have it broken again. And after that happens, I’ll return to her music again.

17. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” by Greg Dulli

Dulli is always going to be remembered best as the frontman for the Afghan Whigs, the ‘90s-era rock band that in a time of grunge, went after R&B instead. But I may even like his later stuff better. This is a Christmas song he put out a couple years ago. It sounds the way Christmas sounds to me now—steeped in happy memories, surrounded by loss, battered and broken but still crazily hoping to hang in there long enough to get to a time where I’m creating new happy memories with the loved ones I still have and with new loved ones I may not have even met yet. It might not happen, but it’s a nice thought.

I bookended this playlist with two different versions of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” from two different artists I love for different reasons, but either way, I truly do hope you had yourself a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Thank you for reading this. Goodnight.