3 Wintry Indie Rock Songs To Add to Your Holiday Playlist

One of my favorite holiday song lyrics appears in “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. Imagine Judy Garland crooning: “Someday soon, we all will be together / If the Fates allow / Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”

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It speaks to the sadness that accompanies joy during the holidays. We’ll be together, but only if all of us are still breathing. Dark, I know, but joy is how we rage against grief. And the Fates. Until then, well, we’ll do our best to navigate the chaotic and awkward moments of life.

So if you are looking to create a holiday playlist with alternative additions to the best-known classics, try these wintry indie rock tunes. They may make you sad, but it’s also where you’ll find the joy.

“Christmas Song” by Phoebe Bridgers

When Phoebe Bridgers covered McCarthy Trenching’s “Christmas Song” in 2018, she said, “The first time I heard this song, it hit me like a ton of bricks. A lot of McCarthy Trenching songs do that. It’s not that often that I hear a Christmas song that doesn’t make me want to quit music.” Bridgers’ version features Jackson Browne on vocals, and it’s the kind of wintry track that brings feelings of loneliness and a heavy heart bubbling to the surface. Even when “tethered to a table with that happy holiday crowd,” one can still feel impossibly alone.

“Snow Song” by Adrianne Lenker

Adrianne Lenker’s “Snow Song” isn’t a song about the holidays, but it’s placed firmly in the backdrop of the season. Lenker uses the metaphor of a frozen lake, where she’ll crack and struggle below the surface to catch her breath—with despair, like relentless water blocking her lungs from oxygen. Over a softly plucked acoustic guitar, the chords cycle like predictable seasons, and perhaps a bleak winter is just the necessary shedding. Though spring may replenish, Lenker’s frozen folk song describes the perils of hibernating in isolation.

“Angel In The Snow” by Elliott Smith

“Angel In The Snow” appears on Elliott Smith’s 2007 posthumous release New Moon. You can read it as an innocent crush, though the narrator, frozen beside his interest, feels distant. It’s the heartache that often accompanies falling in love. However, a darker reading offers another interpretation: a song about addiction where the narrator’s infatuation might be the drugs or someone close to him, strung out on drugs. Either way, it’s another gorgeous masterpiece from Smith.

Photo by Tina Benitez-Eves