Jingle Bell Jawn #10: "Wonderful Christmastime" -- Paul McCartney

I expected this to happen. After getting off to a good start with Jingle Bell Jawns, I fell off precipitously. I could just say that I’ve been busy, but there’s more going on than just that. The reality is that I usually find myself tumbling into depression during the first two weeks of December. I’ve got my reasons.

But that brings me to Paul McCartney’s polarizing “Wonderful Christmastime”. Some people love it, though it seems like an increasing number of people each year hate it. If love and hate are the only two options for “Wonderful Christmastime”, then I chose love. Because “simply having a wonderful Christmastime” isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds.

Wikipedia tells me that Paul McCartney recorded “Wonderful Christmastime” on August 30, 1979 and released it on November 16 of that year. From what I can remember, the song existed relatively undisturbed as a decent synth-pop Christmas song for nearly three decades, but about 10 or 15 years ago, the backlash began. These days, it seems like hating “Wonderful Christmastime” is all the rage.

Despising “Wonderful Christmastime” is fine. I get it. There is a certain “iconic” Christmas movie that I loathe with a white-hot passion. No one is going to dissuade me from disliking that movie and I’m not going to convert the “Wonderful Christmastime” haters. Different strokes, different folks, etc.

If you engage in conversations about holiday music, you’ve probably heard the charges leveled against “Wonderful Christmastime.” “It sounds like McCartney recorded it in 10 minutes.” “It’s too synthy.” “I could have written that song!” “John’s ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over) is so much more meaningful/deep/spiritual/etc.”

“Wonderful Christmastime” is pretty damn synthy, I’ll grant you that.

Maybe McCartney did record “Wonderful Christmastime” quickly. Maybe he didn’t deliberate too much on the composition of the song. Maybe you or I could have written it (but we didn’t). None of that really matters to me. As my friend Ed (who took the above photo) noted, "Wonderful Christmastime sounds like Christmas morning”. That resonated big time with me.

“Wonderful Christmastime” is a fluffy pop confection, a “silly love song”, if you will, to the holiday season. But what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know.

“Wonderful Christmastime” is a different song, with a different agenda, than “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”. [Side note: how many “Happy Xmas” partisans would toss off a series of inane and cliched Yoko Ono jokes at the drop of a Santa cap?]

“Wonderful Christmastime” may not be as deep or as overtly moving as “Happy Xmas”, but I believe there is an inner depth to McCartney’s song that Lennon himself might have appreciated (at least after he wrote it off as rubbish in a Rolling Stone interview).

Seriously, have you considered exactly what it means to “simply have a wonderful Christmastime"? It means that, no matter how complicated your life is and no matter how much heartache and hardship you may have endured over the course of a year, you’ve managed at least for a day, or maybe a few days, to cut through all that and allow yourself a bit of joy that might sustain you as the new year unfolds.

“We’re here tonight and that’s enough,” indeed.

“Simply having a wonderful Christmastime” might be a lighthearted sentiment but it is no mere holiday platitude. It’s transcendence.

That’s why I love “Wonderful Christmastime”.

Plus, I can’t resist a snappy synthpop tune.