Limiting your holiday playlist to your standard “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Deck the Halls” denies you one of the best musical offerings of the yuletide season: sad Christmas songs. Indeed, not every Christmas celebration is as holly, jolly, and bright as your standard holiday musical fare might suggest. Indeed, the fluffy snow Bing Crosby croons about in “White Christmas” can sometimes serve as a backdrop for isolation, stress, and other negative feelings that the popular Christmas canon fails to represent.
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Whether your Christmas feels a little blue or you’re just looking for new music to shake up your go-to holiday playlist, these three sad Christmas songs are the perfect way to lean into the darker side of the holidays.
“Christmas in Prison” by John Prine
Leave it to John Prine to create Christmas songs that are as sad as they are beautiful and humorous. There is no greater example than “Christmas in Prison,” the third track off his 1973 album, Sweet Revenge. As Prine was so often wont to do, he highlighted a massive portion of the population we usually don’t think about around Christmas time: prisoners. Prine begins with imagery of small holiday comforts afforded to the inmates: It was Christmas in prison, and the food was real good; we had turkey and pistols carved out of wood.
Prine makes sure the listener doesn’t forget the sorrow of being incarcerated and away from loved ones over the holidays. In the final verse, he sings, The searchlight in the big yard swings round with the gun, and it spotlights the snowflakes like the dust in the sun. It’s Christmas in prison. There’ll be music tonight, and I’ll probably get homesick. I love you, goodnight.
“Greenwine” by Andrew Bird
If there is any truth to the adage “good artists copy; great artists steal,” few songs prove this idea’s point as well as Andrew Bird’s “Greenwine” from his 2021 album Hark! The melancholy holiday song combines the melody of “Greensleeves,” which is also used in the Christmas carol, “What Child Is This,” and the lyrics of the Handsome Family’s 2000 track, “So Much Wine.” It was an expert combination on Bird’s part, with the latter song’s lyrics effortlessly matching the cadence and harmony of the centuries-old melody.
Christmas can be a stressful, emotionally tense time of year for many people. “Greenwine” beautifully captures the anger and sadness about fighting over the holidays, particularly when seasonal libations enter the mix. I had nothing to say on Christmas day when you threw all your clothes in the snow, the song begins. When you burnt your hair, and you knocked over chairs, I just tried to stay out of your way.
“baby jesus is nobody’s baby now” by Julia Jacklin
Most Christmas songs about baby Jesus come straight from a hymnal, but not Australian songwriter Julia Jacklin’s “baby jesus is nobody’s baby now.” Jacklin wrote this equal parts soft and sad song in 2019 when bushfires in rural Australia prevented her from visiting her family. Even with its geographically specific backstory, Jacklin’s 2020 track speaks to anyone who has experienced or watched their family members experience hardship over the holidays.
She lost the baby, the house nearly burnt down, she begins. Baby Jesus is nobody’s baby now. Watched him pick the pack of smokes out of the bin. This time of year has always been so hard on him. Jacklin’s imagery is simultaneously cozy and cold, highlighting how alienated some people can feel even when surrounded by relatives. She ends the song with a silver-lined look into the future: Say it loud and hope it’s true, next year will be much easier on you.
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