2023-12-24 15:05:05
“Merry Christmas, I’m thinking of you, / I know you won’t come back…” With a sweetness so nostalgic that it becomes painful, Pomme interprets CChristmas arta song embodying the month of December in his new album, Seasons. This piano/voice rhyme is part of a well-filled collection this year where we also find the languorous Christmas with you, released on 45s by Étienne Daho, and albums by Cher, Natasha St-Pier, Gregory Porter…
Sacred or profane, joyful or melancholy, the songs that resonate during the end-of-year celebrations are part of the heritage of the hymns written in the 18th and 19th centuries to accompany Christmas services. We always sing there Holy night, The Angels in our countryside (Gloria), The divine child was born, Midnight, Christians.
This tradition is regenerated every year in the United States and Canada, where the greatest, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, the Beach Boys, Brenda Lee, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Norah Jones …have at least one Christmas album to their credit. Pop followed suit with Mariah Carey and her phenomenal hit All I Want for Christmas Is You, George Michael with Last Christmas from Wham!, as well as today’s stars Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Sia.
A different relationship to the sacred
In France, where Small Santa, launched by Tino Rossi in 1946, still reigns over the Christmas soundtrack, we look with more distance, even suspicion, at these songs full of good feelings, always out of step with their times and participating in holiday marketing.
A question of relationship to the sacred, according to journalist Bertrand Dicale. “In the United States, even the most rebellious rockers playing killer rock will end their set by shouting, “Jesus loves you!” notes this song specialist. In France, a country with a Catholic tradition, we are more circumspect. It is still often considered that the Christmas carol is sacred and should only be heard in the Church. Furthermore, French secularism, by unifying cultural practices and eliminating regional traditions, has pushed back traditional Christmas sociability. Except in Corsica where a cappella singing remains alive, and in the West Indies: in Martinique, the tradition of “Nwel” singing is very festive. »
“It’s true that the French listened to Christmas songs with a certain doubt. But the trend has been changing for three years,” believes Natasha St-Pier. Her Christmas Album bridges the gap between his native country, Canada, and his country of heart, France. “I had wanted to make a Christmas album for a long time, but my record company didn’t see the point. And there, they were the ones who came to get me,” she explains.
Christmas carols or love songs?
“The Christmas album in France was doomed to failure, apart from that ofAznavour who had made it more for his Anglo-Saxon audience, confirms Bertrand Dicale. But French society is becoming Americanized,” he adds, noting imported rituals, such as the marriage proposal on one knee with a ring, or the prom after high school. He who always prefers French songs is highlighting 14 love songs on franceinfo, from December 23 to January 7. His special show, “These songs that (really) make the parties” will cite among others We never tell the people we love enough that we love them by Louis Chedid, My father this hero Aldebert, Besides by Maxime Le Forestier…
“Love is the need we feel at Christmas, and I think that believers or non-believers, people realize to what extent, even more today, we need a peaceful time” , pleads Natasha St-Pier. Slow down, take time for yourself and with your loved ones, listen to familiar songs again…
The end of year celebrations, painful for the lonely, also remain a time when nostalgia and melancholy mix with happy memories of childhood Christmases. Many songs evoking a loved one, absent or deceased, echo this. During this time of conviviality, spirituality and complex emotions, singing or listening to music comforts and accompanies, while as the Christian singer reminds us: “Christmas is a good time to open up to things bigger than yourself. »
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