Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop 25 Christmas Songs of the Last 25 Years: #22 - Blood Feathers, “Christmas Will Help You Feel OK”

It's the holiday season, which means Christmas music. Lots and lots or Christmas music, most of which was written before the people listening to it were even alive. While "Jingle Bells" and "We Three Kings" are great, and resilient, we're devoting this year to finding the best Christmas song written since 1989. We continue today with #22, and a cure for the common Scrooge with Blood Feathers.



#22: Blood Feathers, "Christmas Will Help You Feel O.K." (2009)

It's the first week of December, and we're reaching a critical moment in holiday season: the intersection where public good cheer crashes into (and through) your own personal preparations. If you're reading this, you're probably behind.

We've got 21 days left until Christmas. For kids, this means a couple more weeks of running out the clock on another semester before coming home to yell at people on Xbox Live, or whatever children do in 2014. For adults, like all things, it's different. In the past few days, I've caught myself grinding my teeth while wondering how I'm going to finish up end-of-year work, lug a dead evergreen into my apartment, and stay defrosted during another Chicago winter without first gaining 50 pounds from my new all-eggnog diet. It's even worse for parents, who have to contend with all of that shit plus think up wackier antics for this year's Elf on the Shelf.

That elf is a menace.

During this period of peak holiday stress, it's nice to have a reminder that the whole thing might be worth it, at least a little. Enter Philadelphia's Blood Feathers, who spend the first portion of "Christmas Will Help You Feel O.K." detailing all the reason you might have to not feel ok to begin with. The song doesn't dwell on the negative, nor does it reach for any biblical lessons or Frank Capra platitudes. Instead, the band finds joy in the small things: an extra vacation day, a glass of scotch, the chance to mark another year in the record books and possibly sit in front of a fire while doing so. It's a pragmatic look at what makes the secular version of the holidays special, and why we value that kind of distraction in the first place.

Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop 25 Christmas Songs of the Last 25 Years: #23 - Logan Whitehurst, “Me and the Snowman”

It's the holiday season, which means Christmas music. Lots and lots or Christmas music, most of which was written before the people listening to it were even alive. While "Jingle Bells" and "We Three Kings" are great, and resilient, we're devoting this year to finding the best Christmas song written since 1989. We continue today with #23, and an ode to winter friendship from the late, great Logan Whitehurst.
 

#23 - Logan Whitehurst and the Junior Science Club, "Me and the Snowman" (2004)

One of my favorite moments during the (criminally unheralded) 1987 television special A Muppet Family Christmas comes around Act II. After barging in on Fozzie's mom's house, the gang sets about preparing for an old-fashioned Christmas. Fozzie himself gets put on tree duty, but quickly forgets all of that when he comes across an anthropomorphic snowman with a taste for vaudeville comedy. The two joke their way through a loose rendition of "Sleigh Ride" before Fozzie runs off to tell Kermit about his new find. That scene usually gets cut in the home video release, owing to the high cost of music rights, but I always loved it.

Maybe Logan Whitehurst did, too. The talented singer-songwriter and former member of The Velvet Teen, who passed away eight years ago today at the (criminally young) age of 29, certainly appreciated the same kind of wide-eyed, back-slapping humor that Fozzie Bear embodies. It comes through on songs like this one, a feel-good slice of mid-'00s pop about, well, Logan and a snowman, hanging out and doing winter stuff. It's not explicitly a Christmas song, but in a season that values cameraderie and good will, it fits in better than most standards.