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I was talking with a Christmas music friend the other day (Hi Larry!) and found myself expressing that I don’t feel like I am a very good music critic. I don’t know the ins and the outs of production or music theory, nor can I often put a finger on the influences that have shaped a band or a song. I’ve encountered other folks in this world who are a bottomless well of knowledge (Stubby), and I’m amazed. However, that is most certainly not me. Then how do I find my way in to talk about a song or record? Well, I talk about my feelings an awful lot. So, when I get sent a new Wake Up and Smell the Sun song… I get equal parts excited and worried. First off, John Murray, the man behind this WUaStS project creates some of the most interesting Christmas music I have ever encountered… thus it is always a pleasure to see what he has cooked up. However… I find myself struggling to do justice, to express how interesting and important I think his songs are. So, in a wildly appropriate start to this review, I begin with an apology to the reader, and to John, for its pedestrian nature. —- I wrote that sentence without even thinking about the title of the release… woah 🙂
The new single by Wake Up and Smell the Sun, The Pedestrian Chronicles Part 2, is a pair of tracks that I wasn’t quite sure I’d ever hear. John had emptied the vaults at the end of last year with Soft Angelic Jams, a 7-song collection billed as a “final collection” of Christmas songs, released on Dec. 21… at the beginning of my own burnout phase. Regretfully, I have yet to review it, but I don’t have rules for this site and I feel like John would crack a smile if I reviewed it in April sometime.
As the new year began, John began releasing his music within the construct of The Pedestrian Chronicles – not as a record or as singles, just as a continual recording project. With this drop, we get Chapters 5 & 6, two Christmas songs that despite John’s insistence that he must break with the holiday, have found life within the new, continually expanding recording project. John mentioned the existence of “Chapter 5: Jingle Humming” to me last year, and I feel so fortunate that he decided to finish it. “Jingle Humming” is one of those songs that checks so many boxes for me – a melancholy political Christmas song dressed in incredibly clever lyrics and a soaring chorus. That last verse is a killer:
I lit candles for forgiveness. Prayed novenas in my room…
…for the feast of silver linings and the politics of doom. (THIS LINE- wow)
It’s still no near to ever ending. Dim lit blissfulness is trending.
It’s the Christmas that you wanted.
All your consciences are haunted…
…by the energy you’re spending…
…on the partisan positions you’re defending.
As with any Wake Up and Smell the Sun release, you may struggle to pick a favorite… but let me release you from the worry. You can love them, and you don’t have to rank them. They will love you back, in their own unique way. “Chapter 6: The Anvil and the Angel” has a completely different vibe. While Chapter 5 was recorded, engineered, and produced by the wonderful team of Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey at the Miner Street Recording Studio (which is often the home of WUaStS releases), Chapter 6 was self-recorded and produced by John. The song is a series of posed questions, their repetition suggestive of a mantra of someone working through how they feel about Christmas. It is the kind of song that I’d imagine hits differently now than it would a few weeks later, in the thick of the holiday, with all of its emotional baggage.
Wake Up and Smell the Sun records are often low-key chock-full of Philadelphia-area indie rock luminaries. On Chapter 5, you’ll find Patrick Berkery, who has played with War on Drugs, Strand of Oaks, the Bigger Lovers, Danielson, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, etc, etc, on drums and bells. You’ll also hear Robbie Bennett of the War on Drugs – he plays the piano and organ. I love the way that John describes Robbie’s contribution: “Robbie just sprays his keys all over, lifting, riding, and tapping into the rhythms and melodies. It always works.” You’ll also hear Art Difuria, formerly of Lilys and currently and always of the Photon Band, on both Chapters 5 & 6, adding background vocals and guitar. John’s got some serious partners in crime here, as he often does.
These songs are why this blog exists. Holiday music shouldn’t be relegated to celebrating the latest worked-over Christmas cover when there are songs like this, waiting to be discovered, headphones on, nodding your head, and smiling with every beautiful, surprising, clever, touching line.
I leave you with a short paragraph that John sent over, which I do believe captures his work perfectly:
I don’t write candy pop songs for the Christmas Card Committee and I don’t send family pictures to my friends. My songs are not sing-song, feel good, jingles and they’re not soaring springs of praise. Whatever a guitar and a microphone gives me, that’s what I get. Rejoice in the melancholy people! It’s all around. See it. Smile at it. Laugh at it. Wish it well. Screw it, like a volunteer.
Bottom Line: Wake Up and Smell the Sun have created a body of work that is some of the most beautiful, fascinating, clever Christmas music I have ever heard. Go listen.
Christmas Underground 