2021 – Page 5 – Christmas Underground

There are some years when a single country looms large over my blog… and this may be the year of Australia. Here we have yet another excellent Melbourne-based artist (though this is certainly more on the pop side) with a debut album and an excellent Christmas single. While Maple Glider’s was a complicated emotional story of love and pain, Gretta Ray in both lyric and tone is a 180-degree flip of healing and optimism. The anticipation of Christmas in Philadelphia while helping a friend get over a broken heart, you feel that incredible warmth inside the tour van despite its mechanical issues. Perhaps a bit more radio-pop that I normally skew on this site (I do love an extremely poppy indiepop of course), but something about it hooked and stuck. Sad songs often make me feel better… but sometimes you just want a hug.

Bottom Line: Gretta Ray brings a warmth that I am happy to bask in.

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Let’s kick up the season… with something beautiful and sad! What else can you expect from this blog?? Melbourne’s Maple Glider, aka Tori Zietsch, has penned this absolutely heartbreaking, fragile finger-picked beauty to close her debut album, To Enjoy is the Only Thing. Zietsch’s background is incredibly interesting, being brought up in a religious sect that she only refers to as “The Religion” (referred to in this song), which kept her from much interaction with the outside world until she and her mother left at 15. She formed a band, fell in love, broke up and moved to Brighton, England after Googling “places to live.” There she began writing what became Only Thing. Zietsch’s creative reemergence came shortly after moving back to Melbourne in 2019, when she played a few songs for friends, including the new song “Mama It’s Christmas.” This deeply personal song sung to her brother has emotional tentacles that may very well leave you tearing up with empathy. In these tumultuous times, many find themselves either struggling themselves, or caring for those for which the pain persists… mental, physical, spiritual pain. It is in the air, and Maple Glider has captured this perfectly.

You called me that night
Said babe don’t you worry now
All I could manage was I love you

But I should have reached through the phone
Slapped you hard on the cheek
So that you could know pain like I do when you leave

Edit: In perhaps one of the craziest coincidences I’ve had recently, this afternoon I found a note from July from a reader (Hi Christian!) recommending this exact song to me. So, Christian, thanks for the tip – it was most obviously a good one. Also – I promise to be better checking my various forms of communications now that I’m making an earnest attempt to get back on the site for the season. BUT, hot tip… Twitter is your best bet. This is NOT the first time that I’ve missed a message on Facebook recommending something that I then write about…

Bottom Line: Fragile beauty from down under.

Tag: 2021

Gretta Ray “It’s Almost Christmas in Philly” (2021)

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Maple Glider “Mama It’s Christmas” (2021)

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