Kate Bush has released one great song about Christmas, but unfortunately not as a properly launched single. She did, many years earlier, release a proper Christmas single, but it, well, is a bit of an acquired taste, which is par for the course with the British singer, who has done things her way throughout her career (including taking a dozen years - 12! - to make her last record).
The good song is Home For Christmas, which was released in 1993 ... as a B-side, to the single Moments of Pleasure. Most people were not able to get the song commercially until the 2005 compilation Plugged In For the Holidays. (Interestingly, a cover version, by Diamond Jim Greene, was included, at almost twice the length, too, on the 1998 tribute album, I Wanna Be Kate.)
I love the song. It's short, charming, like a strummed gem perfect for late on a pre-Christmas night. I have a different reaction to Bush's one and only official Christmas-oriented single, December Will Be Magic Again, which was released in time for Christmas 1980, but was recorded a year earlier, as she set out to make songs like Babooshka and Army Dreamers. The song has that feeling, and the video below doesn't help it.
Here's the video (well, actually, it's just the audio) for Home For Christmas:
Almost for fun, here's the video from a much earlier, loopier time, and December Will Be Magic Again:
This is the 10th posting in a musical advent calendar I'm compiling this year, consisting of songs and albums I'd recommend. I'll have another one tomorrow, and each day through Christmas Eve.
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