Is It a Christmas Song If It Feels Like It?

Words by Joshua Reynes

Josh went shopping during December and was forced to reckon with the state of modern Christmas music.

Dominic Sessa in "The Holdovers" | Image edit by Joshua Reynes.

I recently walked into my local HomeGoods to get my Torani fix. Little-to-no surprise, my senses were bombarded by what was sprawled across the December market floor: polyester Snoopy blankets, kitschy Florida Christmas ephemera, discounted tabletop applicances, and aisles smushed together to make room for the extra holiday stock. Michael Bublé crooning on the PA system is to be expected in any mainstream holiday shopping experience, but then I heard something so bizarre and out of place…

I wouldn’t consider "This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)" by Talking Heads a holiday standard, but the higher-ups at TJX beg to differ. Moreover, it was a rendition by BADBADNOTGOOD featuring Norah Jones taken from the Everybody’s Getting Involved tribute album. A24 Music released the project in support of the studio’s 2023 remaster of Stop Making Sense–one of the most acclaimed concert movies in history and personal all-timer for me. Small Talks Magazine as an institution is not a film magazine, but I’d be remiss to not find a way to merge the two worlds together (a passion all our editors share).

In theory, I do not reject "This Must Be The Place" in the holiday canon: it’s a unique, emotional love song about finding your home in another person – it has a jovial gaiety much different from the ironic and cerebral "I’ll Be Home for Christmas". BBNG’s laidback loungey production and Norah Jones’ performance make the cover prime muzak for a retail environment: vaguely familiar and not distracting to the average consumer. I couldn’t help but wonder, what other songs, whether lyrically or sonically, are Christmas songs and we never knew it?

Retail music curation, as a practice, is mysterious and psychologically manipulative. It is only logical this intentionality amplifies during the busiest shopping season of the year. US consumer confidence may have dived this November, but whether society likes to admit it or not, thou shalt spend. Addison once said, “music speaks”; hearing this Talking Heads cover felt like a message for me to decode. Every winter, Christmas classics take over airwaves, repertory cinema thrives, K-pop companies put out “Holiday Versions” of the year’s smashes where they add sleigh bells and call it day, and to the few, the criteria for holiday media is reevaluated. 

In my journey, it started with tweets about Carly Rae Jepsen’s “The Loneliest Time” being a Christmas song, despite saying nothing about the season. Then TikToks about the tubular bells portion of Harry Styles “As It Was” making it a Christmas song. I used my ears and agreed, but now, on top of a bleak hill of cheap ceramic and lead-positive snacks, it seems that the retail gods are trying to do my bidding for me. I remembered Hugh Grant’s Love Actually monologue set to “God Only Knows”, mourned Brian Wilson for the umpteenth time this year, and gave in.

Coming up are five songs tried-and-tested by yours truly. Whether it’s driving around adjacent suburbs to see the lights or commuting home when it’s already dark out, these tracks are sure to fit into your holiday rotation or, if anything, give you a break from the same holiday fare washed, rinsed, and repeated year after year.

1. Real Thing - Drugdealer & Weyes Blood

Something really weird happened to the word “chic” this year. We might have had something to do with that, but that doesn’t mean we are in a drought. Natalie Mering, better known as Weyes Blood and LA-based soft rock band Drugdealer pick up where they left off in 2016 after multiple collaborations on the band’s The End of Comedy album. Nearly a decade passed, and their breezy and easy listening-inspired sound is fresher than ever. “Real Thing” can be viewed as a direct follow-up to “Suddenly” from Comedy, thematically and sonically. This uplifting track reflects on old love not lasting the seasons, compared to the titular “real thing” with someone new. With its lush and textured instrumentation, Weyes Blood and Drugdealer transport you to a mid-century Christmas party with stiff drinks, warm lighting, a conversation pit, and not an ounce of millennial grey in sight. The saxophone solo that rips in a way I’ve been missing from this decade’s sound, but also the state of popular holiday music at large. I’d be remiss not to mention the strong Carpenters influence emanating from this partnership; it’s almost like a Drugdealer & Weyes Blood supergroup is on the horizon.

2. Angels -  Robbie Williams

Paramount going all in on an R-rated Robbie Williams biopic for the love of the game is not something I expected. Moreover, I didn't forecast that the CGI-monkey pet project would catapult me into a deep Robbie Williams phase at the top of this year. My only knowledge of Williams before this was his placements in two early 2010s video games, Just Dance 3 (a cover of the Sinatras’ “Somethin Stupid” featuring AMC ambassador Nicole Kidman) and GTA V (“Kids” featuring Kylie Minogue). Set to a perfectly chill E major, 1997’s Angels is a pop standard in its homeland– England –and arguably, the enigmatic pop tenor’s signature song. This anthem flourishes with honest vocals from Williams, an epic chorus, and a tear-jerking instrumental breakdown by order of the London Session Orchestra. 28 years later, it may be seen as too grandiose for its own good, but in the Christmas canon, there's no such thing as too much. For extra festiveness, the arrangement from the XXV anniversary album is more symphonic and has a football chant attitude to it, if that’s your cup of tea.

3. Rudolph - MJ Lenderman

MJ Lenderman, it's really important that you watch the new Knives Out movie. The Christmas season is brought up as a time for celebration and oblation, but on “Rudolph”, the alt-country bard waxes picaresque about freak accidents with Santa’s outcast reindeer and Pixar’s leading Car. He dares to ask, “How many roads must a man walk down til he learns / He’s just a jerk who flirts with the clergy nurse til it burns.” The endlessly catchy riff and undulating production recall the classic stylings of Dylan, Wilco, and Young, among many others. The main riff it's built around has an impeccable groove and doesn't even scratch the surface of Lenderman's propensity for ear-worms. While it leans Christmas through name alone, it’s a song for any time of the year. But, if you’re heading home for the holidays and find yourself slipping back into your old ways, you might as well put this on and do it with a little swag. 

4. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI - Utada (Hikaru Utada)

When the late, great Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the score for the David Bowie-fronted antiwar film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, I don’t think he expected Kingdom Hearts czar Hikaru Utada to sample the theme on their 2009 English-language project, the aptly titled, This Is the One, a Western-label fronted effort featuring some of the J-pop singer-songwriter’s most avant lyrics yet. “Like Captain Picard, I’m chilling and flossing”–who’s to say what Utada meant by this? That isn’t the most outlandish bar on the entire project or in their polyglot discography. Hikaru Utada takes an already perfect melody and riffs on a level that is freaking sublime. In the original context of Mr. Lawrence, the theme adds an unexpected weight and tenderness to the bleak WWII tragedy. The desire to subvert teen idoldom and gain mainstream international breakthrough, in broad strokes, inadvertently captures both the commercial spirit of Christmas pop and the provocative status of Mr. Lawrence in Christmas canon. The jury is still out on this track’s place as a holiday classic, but it gets points for earnestness—bringing layers of culture and home with it. 

5. Au Pays Du Cocaine - Geese

“You can be free / And still come home”, Cameron Winter pleads on “Au Pays Du Cocaine”—a standout for its quietly devastating lyricism and detailing of a melancholic tread back from the end of the road. Mr. Winter and company have really outdone themselves with this one. The balladry on display has a timeless quality: forlorn guitar leads; jangly, sad tambourine; Winter’s crooning baritone. If 2025 was the “Year of Geese”, then, then I'd be remiss to not include the Brooklyn band in this line-up (I went to the Getting Killed pop-up show, lives were changed). Much like a lot of our holiday favorites, it’s an emotionally gutting song. “Christmas (Baby Please Come)” by Darlene Love offers similar musings, albeit with far more vintage “wall-of-sound” flashiness. It also wouldn’t feel out of place in 2023’s Christmas classic contender The Holdovers. That film’s soundtrack tactfully sidesteps the usual trappings of a holiday soundtrack in favor of music that evokes the feeling. I saw a TikTok edit to this very song, and yes, I believe, Angus Tully, “you can change”. 

Joshua Reynes is the Head of Content & Creative for Small Talks Magazine. He can be reached at @jreyreyj on Instagram. For more work, see joshuaereynes.com.