Merry Christmas

Ed Sheeran & Elton John
2021



Disclaimer: All perspectives, opinions, and memories in this entry are mine and mine alone. Some content is rugged, raw, and - sometimes - NSFW, but it's all authentic and included with purpose.


Last year, I wrote about my 12 all-time favorite Christmas songs but then this season, a new one popped up out of absolutely nowhere - and I gotta admit, it’s already making a hard charge at landing on my all time list. God knew it’s been a rough year for all of us, so he gave us an early Christmas present as Ed Sheeran teamed up with Elton John on “Merry Christmas,” which was released on Dec 3. Some quick bullet point notes/thoughts:

  • While we’re here - can you imagine Elton John calling you out of the blue and asking you to do a Christmas song with him? That has to be a surreal and insane few minutes.

  • This song punctuates what has been a “British Revolution” year for me. “Ted Lasso” got me into watching Premier League soccer (I’m a Chelsea fan all the way) and that got me listening to all kinds of new British music - which also led me to discovering another Christmas classic “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues from 1987 (FYI - the song still holds up but there are some NSFW lyrics and derogatory slurs).

  • It’s interesting to me how this song acknowledges and references how hard life has been for everyone the past couple of years. It’s like we are entering another post-World War II era where the global experiences shaped and influenced entertainment. My all-time favorite Christmas song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was released in 1944 and the original version was very sad and melancholy. This new song’s self awareness actually brought me a sense of peace and comfort in a way I can’t fully articulate yet. Maybe it’s because it feels like a “misery loves company” situation. Like, I know *I’ve* been struggling but to hear that freaking Ed Sheeran has been struggling too? That’s randomly helpful? I don’t know. Gonna keep chewing on that one.

  • This leads me to my final point - it’s been a rough autumn for me, team. I think it started as a chaotic cocktail of a lot of factors, but I’ve been in a really dark place since September. I’ve always battled depression but this has been the darkest and the worst stretch of my entire life. The best way I can describe it is that it has felt like a heavy weighted blanket has been suffocating my entire body. I’ve been experiencing these insane panic attacks that I can’t even control anymore. I didn’t know how to handle any of it, so I became a walking mid-life crisis cliche of substance abuse and reckless behavior. I’m sure I will write about it all more at some point in the future but fortunately I’ve had amazing friends and family support around me and that’s why I’m still here today. Truly. Thanks to some close people intervening on my behalf, I think we now have a good game plan in place with some real, practical care already set up moving forward. I’ve got a long way to go, but I think I can already see some light at the end of this tunnel.

All that to say - I’m sure some people will hear this song and think it’s “cute” or “fun” or probably even some will think it’s too optimistically saccharine in the vein of another Christmas classic.

But I have to say that there’s something about this song that has given me some… simple joy in my life the past few days. Reminds me that not everything needs to be a thought-out masterpiece of carefully crafted lyrics and musical composition. Sometimes we can just enjoy two legends hanging out and singing about Christmas. 


Listen to "Merry Christmas" here:




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