I can think of one - auld lang syne. Are there any others? Why not? If anything, New Year’s is celebrated by everyone whereas Christmas isn’t.
Just guessing here, but Christmas has cemented itself in the wider cultural consciousness thanks in part to commercially exploitable traditions like gift-giving. It’s is often celebrated in some way by people who are not even Christian (Japan, for example). There are very specific themes, religious and secular, associated with Christmas that you can write songs about, The birth of Jesus, obviously, but also family gatherings, winter weather (Northern hemisphere bias), the whole Santa mythos and so on.
What Americans associate with Christmas is actually three separate feasts scrunched into one. Saint Nicholas day (December 6th) which is why Saint Nicholas is associated with Christmas, and Epiphany (January 6th) again for the magi, are the traditional gift-giving holidays, but got engulfed by the unstoppable Yule Tide. So you have these three different occasions with their own songs combined together.
New years doesn’t have the same cultural presence.
Counting Crows - Long December
The New Year - Death Cab For Cutie
A lot of modern holiday songs focus on Christmas since it is the biggest for songs being played for a large part of the western world. Christmas is a juggernaut that crushes other puny holidays.
Because New Years isn’t about boosting sales of consumer goods.
Fireworks I guess?
And plastic champagne glasses. And those l little headbands with the year on top.
Pretty limited compared to Xmas though.
Don’t forget the year glasses! Although those peaked in the 2000s (with a resurgence in 2020)
2002 was the ultimate
And gym memberships.
Lots of Christmas songs are actually just winter songs.
Frosty the snowman
Jingle bells
Winter wonderland
Sleigh ride
That’s true, but you don’t really hear them being played once christmas is over
After three months, we’re ready for them to go.
Especially if you work retail
Jingle bells
And its ugly cousin, Jingle Bell Rock. “Dancin’ and prancin’” is clearly a reference to Santa’s reindeer, but it has enough plausible deniability that it could be argued it’s not strictly a Christmas song.
Jingle bells and sleigh ride reference modern christmas traditions (Santa)
They reference sleighs because they are (were) a practical and fun way of getting around in winter. Sleighs are associated with Santa but the songs aren’t about his sleigh.
I’m willing to bet that people aren’t playing those songs in southern hemisphere winter.
Nope, we only play them in summer at Christmas time. It’s weird when you think about it, but it’s totally normal at the same time.
I think they might. We should find someone from Dunedin.
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Jingle Bells was originally drinking song, not related to Christmas at all.
Nope, it was written for a minstrel show, to mock black folks. The songwriter later moved south to join the confederacy.
At least according to Wikipedia, the original The One Horse Open Sleigh was possibly intended as a drinking song. That’s also what I heard from someone I know, so that’s what stuck with me.
Christmas is more of an industry than a holiday, thus all the products and goods made to market it.
Does “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” count for both?
It does, but it’s only good for up to Dec. 25th. After that it can’t be used as a New Year’s song.
Just change it to We Wished You…
New Year’s is celebrated by everyone
More so than Christmas, perhaps—but you still have people with different calendars (Chinese, Jewish, Muslim, etc.).
That’s a good point. I wonder if there are many songs dedicated to new year for people following those calendars?
Just guessing but you (and I) probably have a euro centric view of it.
We are only listening to songs in English by artists that are western individuals.
I bet if we look at songs in asia and Africa it’s a different story
Taylor Swift - New Years Day
I think Christmas is just a bigger event. Christmas has work Christmas parties, some holidays, family gatherings, gifts, etc etc spanning usually the whole month of December. New Years is just one evening which is usually just spent with a few friends or family and requires nothing special except staying up late.
Yes I think you’re right - there’s a lot of lead-up to christmas and it’s usually a time where you come together over a few days. Whereas NYE is one evening, and it doesn’t involve special food or presents etc. (just lots of booze)
It’s usually not classified this way, but I consider 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall a New Year’s song. It combines two of the main NYE traditions – alcohol and counting backwards.
Semisonic — “This Will Be My Year”
The Mountain Goats — “This Year”
Counting Crows — “Long December”
Kutless — “Vow”
Ohh a good selection, thanks!
For other non-X-mas winter songs, consider:
The Head & the Heart — “Winter Song”
Dar Williams — “February”
Tacocat — “Snow Day”
From what country are you? I don’t know a single Christmas song (except for some strictly religious shit), but I think I could recall a few New Year-related (they’re mostly for children, though)
I’m from the UK. Whereabouts are you from, to have never heard a christmas song?
I’m from Ukraine (Eastern Europe) and never heard a christmas song except for a part of some cult festive events.
In Britain, especially from the 1970s to 2000s, there was always a race to be the #1 charting song at Christmas, and songs with a Christmas theme often won out, even if they were otherwise secular pop songs. This means that over the years, we’ve ended up with probably a hundred of them ranging in quality from terrible to great.
America have followed suit. Or else, they might argue they started it with songs like “White Christmas” and “Silver Bells”.
This is largely down to the more permissive secular and Protestant Christian societies where irreverence is tolerated if not encouraged.
The Catholic and Orthodox churches are less tolerant of those sorts of things, so people in countries with heavy influence from those churches - like yourself - won’t have had anything like it.
The Catholic and Orthodox churches are less tolerant of those sorts of things, so people in countries with heavy influence from those churches - like yourself - won’t have had anything like it.
You slightly missed with your reasoning of my case: Ukraine is an exUSSR republic where religion wasn’t actually encouraged, so we don’t have any secular traditions about religious events. But because of the hardships of life, religion has crept back during the last 30 years and so have religious songs and traditions. As a result, Christmas is a purely religious event here, and it is interesting only for religious people.
I think the point is when it came to secular things pertaining to Christmas, the church would have said “No”, and the state would have gone along with that, even if most people weren’t religious.
The same happens everywhere, regardless of religion or how prominent it is. If you attempt to do something that the elders of a religion say are offensive to that religion, the state will discourage it, and so people don’t bother in the first place.
Oh that’s interesting to hear! What new year’s songs do you know then?
Some songs from cartoons and movies? I think I could recall a few. No idea how they are called, of course :)
I heard once that in the early days of printing (and literacy) most of Europe’s reading material was made for or by the church. And one of the things that was very popular at various points in the 16th century were books of hymns, many of which contained old latin hymns turned Christmas carols. It doesn’t explain the lack of New Years songs, but it may be why we continue to have so many Christmas songs compared to every other holiday.
Because we all actually hate New Years.
By most accounts, 25 Dec as a day in the calendar is a historical accident. The boy was probably not born in winter. Calendar problems, ancient Roman holidays, and the proximity to the winter solstice made this a historical game of telephone until a pope just set it in stone (some orthodox churches don’t agree but January is probably only marginally more correct for his birthday).
Traditionally, Christmas lasted so long it usurped solar new years. On the 8th day of Christmas my sweetheart gave to me … a shitload of weird stuff. Mostly birds, for some reason.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but isn’t in UK English “Christmas” still used to describe the whole year end period encompassing the year change. To me they are two close but still separate events with a bit of decorational overlap. So I understand your question why there aren’t more New Years songs. But the answer may simply be: history and tradition. People tolerate Christmas tunes until the 31st and then they’re all cheered out. And NY for most is just a reminder that it’s back to work now.
