A Short List of Conscious Music for the Season (2023 edition)

For your Universal Holiday Season listening (as I explained last year, it extends the very least to Three Kings Day on 6 January). There’s no particular order to the songs except for how they flow. The result below, to be sure, is that the songlist is bookended by two humorous pieces. Ska-pop, gospel-inflected carol, psychedelic soul, and Southcoast thump’n’soul are represented here.

Madness’ “Inanity Over Christmas” (1985) was the second track on the B-side of the picture-disc single “Uncle Sam.” The song begins with the band members introducing themselves and their instruments as the lilting song begins with holiday sound trappings and great dissonant vocals with lyrics such as:

Pages freeze upon your pension book

And up flies the flag of inflation

This otherwise upbeat story of the guys boasting “But oh, this time, I'll be waiting up by the chimney stack” turns chaotic when a hapless bullhorn-wielding cop orders them to come down. An escalating shouting match ensues with one who refuses to budge, and continues until the fade-out. Here is some of the, uh, dialogue, which includes an appropriately cartoonish police show trope:

“You’ll never take me alive, copper!”

…

“We've got you on six counts of disturbing the peace!”

"Shove it, copper, I'll stick a grapefruit in your face! We're gonna keep singing!”

…

"I'm going to send in the troops if you don't come down here""

“You’ll never take me alive, you stupid flatfoot! I’m on top of the world!”

There’s no end to that exchange, so keep listening for a charming punk guitar coda!

On Jon Anderson’s holiday album 3 Ships, the voice of Yes duets with gospel star Sandra Crouch (of the noted Crouch family of singers). “O Holy Night” (1985) is remarkable for including a controversial verse that in earlier recordings was banned on Southern US radio.  She belts out the offending lyrics:

Truly He taught us to love one another

His law is love and His Gospel is Peace

Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother

And in His name all oppression shall cease

Rotary Connection’s “Shopping Bag Menagerie” (1968), from Peace, itself an intentionally disappeared album, is sung by Sidney Barnes, backed by jazz-fusion guitar and producer Charles Stepney’s tight orchestration. It is a class-conscious lament of a last-minute Christmas shopper, the joy having greatly diminished with his buying power. 55 years later, the song hasn’t lost its relevance.

Massachusetts’ Indigenous Mashpee Wampanoag combo The GroovaLottos present their trademark Southcoast thump’n’soul (a mix of soul, funk, and Aftobeat) to create “Xmas Morning” (2020). It’s a rollicking deconstructive gross-out parody with warnings, especially “Don’t eat yellow snow from your rooftop Christmas morning.” The video for the song is also a treat, mixing live with minimalist graphics, very much resembling those indie videos from the 80s, the only nod to the present being the rectangular phone footage, which includes a piece of Chuck V’s cool bluesy guitar.

Father-and-son vocalists Mwalim Da Phunkee Professor and The ZYG 808 harmonize well to reveal the root of the pranks, er “reindeer games”:

Santa’s workshop elves 

Haven’t had a raise in years

…

If Santa had any sense in his head

He’d take better care of the folks 

who feed his reindeer and pack his sled

¡Enjoy!

And here’s the 2022 edition: