Sam Ryder 2023 Amazon Prime original You’re Christmas To Me.
Christmas: Rushing home from work, last minute shopping, missing gifts. It is the busiest time of year but it must be this way to bring joy to each other on the big day.The frantic searches for sellotape the debates over what to get for that one odd family member and the sweaty trips through shopping centres all become worth it, sat surrounded by tendrils of eagerly torn wrapping paper, revealed presents buried in Christmas confetti, families, friends and lovers all find themselves under the tree, either experiencing or re-experiencing that unrivalled sense of joy once felt as a child.
As we age we realise that it is not some jolly man and his magic elves that make these moments (spoiler) but the people we hold close around us, it is not about the parcels under the tree but the people that put them there.
‘You’re Christmas To Me‘ by Sam Ryder is all about celebrating the people that bring is that chirstmassy feeling of being home after a long time away, throughout the year. The souls that bring us peace or the party depending on what we need. A vociferous expression of euphoria this track boasts a colourful feeling, Ryders gravitational energy taking us to the tree whether we are still in that busy store or stuck working.
You’re the star up on the tree
You’re the only gift I need
And I’d use up all my wishes If it only made you see
What a special time of year Full of joy and festive cheer
Sam Ryder You’re Christmas To Me 2023
With some jazz influences, a classic keyboard and a booming bass Ryder takes us all out to the Christmas party. Christmas is about community, about compassion, looking after each other through both dark days and bright ones, and one this tune Ryder reminds us to appreciate those who perform this, including yourself.
The festive track actually features in Amazon Prime’s new original Christmas film, Your Christmas or Mine 2, but could it double as a Christmas miracle and reach number one? If not it is still a banger which best believe we will be wrapping our presents too for years to come.
Declan McKenna Slipping Through My Fingers 2023 Youtube
I originally heard this song with my Mother when I was 8. We were watching Mamma Mia and mother and daughter, Donna and Sophie were preparing for Sophie’s wedding watching with Donna painting Sophie’s toenails, me not understanding why my mother wold weep during this part but joining in with eh anyway, perceiving it through the film whilst my mother watched it in reality.
Slipping Through My Fingers Declan McKenna 2023
Covering it back in 2021 over an instagram live Declan McKenna has finally realised his rendition of Abbas greatest sad song, listening to it feels like a poignant punishment, as you imagine everything that could have been if it was different compared to how it is and finding happiness in that.
With new album ‘What Happened To The Beach?’ set to be released on February 9th, perhaps Declan is easing us into his new era.Still faithful to the original McKenna’s take on ‘Slipping through my fingers’, appears softer, more raw, like an observer to a departure rather than the one being departed from. His acoustic guitar reverberating through the track demonstrates how natural this final wave is yet how disputing it can feel. There is no reassuring chorus like that seen in the film or in the original by ABBA, there is just a feeling of mournful melencholy as we try to find peace with the inevitability of adulthood and unfair farewells. We learn to forgive each other for our failures and forget all the ‘adventures we planned’ but didn’t do in the face of new forged paths that this farewell makes way for.
Declan McKenna Slipping Through My Fingers 2023 Youtube
Listening to it now, 9 years later, with a different narrator,I still think of my mum, I think of us dancing to Abba’s hits together, hairbrushes and pepper mills as make shift microphones.Our living room the Pyramid Stage as we performed ABBA’s greatest hits, steering away from ‘Slipping through my fingers’ to avoid sobbing. I sob as I watch those memories,160 miles away from her. But it is also the younger versions of myself I weep for, the realisation that time does pass and often too quickly, your early 20s split into separate lifetimes, high school feels like eons ago and although you graduated uni less than a year ago, you were surely a child then and now you have a car, a house a promotion.
It’s all happened too fast and you find yourself slipping through your own fingers along with everyone else that once held you close. Small pixels forming friends faces replace Saturday afternoons spent doing whatever teenagers do, your parents guidance cut short to a 5 minute phone call about the weather and the gas bill, these people who were once your whole world now a stranger to you, and you sob helplessly knowing there is nothing you can do.
An ode to parenthood, to growing up and saying goodbye Declan delivers ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ beautifully.
“With a momentous magnitude and a siren sound it is no wonder The Last Dinner Party have reached such heights.”
The Last Dinner Party – Photo: Cal McIntyre
Feminine rage, feminine love, the mercy it means to be a woman. Chew on us and we will be thankful for the touch, passive to it’s pain. We are expected to endure, our lives an eternal endeavour. Constrained by societal expectations, we are bound to maintain a facade of indifference, as if ‘Nothing Matters’. Yet, deep within our souls, the anger simmers, the fire of resilience burns, combating the persisting notion the prehistoric. This palpable sensation resonates profoundly in the latest offering from the musical ensemble The Last Dinner Party, aptly titled song ‘ My Lady of Mercy’.
Like a composition from the renaissance, the music brims with grandiosity and intricacies. Each note dances and weaves together, painting an evocative portrait of the multifaceted feminine experience. In its graceful melodies and elegantly crafted lyrics, we find solace and validation for the emotions that stir within us. Indeed, the duality of feminine existence is a truth woven intricately into the fabric of this masterpiece. It encapsulates the essence of our longing, our battles, and ultimately, our triumphs amidst a world that often seeks to diminish our power.
The Last Dinner Party
Made up of Aurora Nishevci, Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland ,Emily Roberts, and Abigail Morris, the girls met during Freshers’ week at university and started to host gigs in South London. This lead to their discovery after a video of them performing was uploaded and a cascade of record artists got in touch asking to represent them.
Inspired by the saints and martyrs of yesteryear, the women in paint on golden plaques held high, Anne Boleyn, Mother Mary, the woman with a broken toe and a distant gaze on the bus, your best friends mother and your co-workers sister. We are surrounded by a mosaic of muses. This is an unconventional love song, unfettered from expectations here love flows freely, you love these women for who they are not how they make you feel, to love is to toe the line between being selfless and selfish and this song is is a testament to this.
The Last Dinner Party – My Lady of Mercy
We have unbridled passion for people we have a bustling sense of self and we should be merciful with who we are and how we want to be . Mercy does not always mean to be soft it means to be powerful in your approach and compassionate in your delivery. An orchestral Boudoir, The Last Dinner Party execute their songs in an ethereal way that exude gothic romanticism, leaving you entranced, euphoric but also melancholic – a sense of wanting to be a part of it, this choir of rebellion, rage and authenticity.
Despite is soft, soothing start with an enticing build up this song becomes quite a merciless sound it’s ruthless guitar and propulsive dream a tempest on the stage. My Lady Of Mercy is a piercing piece of poetry. The power, the prowess the poignancy of the premise, the alluring twang of the guitar in the penultimate verse, this song is succulent like a ripened peach plucked from a tree but beautifully bitter like a cranberry. It is ethereal and energetic ,sacred and profound, it is the sound of someone regaining control of their own narrative.
Nothing matters- The Last Dinner Party
With a momentous magnitude and a siren sound it is no wonder The Last Dinner Party have reached such heights. Despite only releasing their debut single, the hedonistic and harmonious “Nothing Matters” earlier this year in April the quintet have already had a major U.S Tour and with their debut studio album, a ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ set to release January 2024, this storm is making the world their stage.
“‘My Lady of Mercy’ is about being a girl,” the band explained. “A girl looking up at a painting of Joan of Arc for the first time and thinking that she looks so brave and so beautiful that she wants to kiss her. And maybe she also wants to kiss the girl who stands next to her in the school choir.
For me, the song is about being brutal, showing the blood and the guts it takes to create a smiling face. It is a bit tears and laughter, choking on spit throwing fights just to get hit, its about feeling it all in order to feel alive. It is the rain and the thunder tearing your home asunder. It is about, getting hurt and hurting, healing and forgiving and doing it all wrong when you’re trying to do it right, Ultimately, it is a celebration of our shared humanity.
When I think of the Last Dinner party I think of Ophelia immortalised by John Stuart Mills, of Catherine The Great, Kristen Dunst as Marie Antoinette and the remarkable Mia goth in X. I imagine stories full of poisoned love letters, lipstick on tongues and smeared on fingertips, people wearing each others messes and mending them into masterpieces. Seeing the all female quintet live was like being invited to a party you never meet the host of, you leave fulfilled but later on discover a gaping ache burning in your insides, the longing to be a part of something as powerful as them, which is why we are all invited to their’ Last Dinner Party.
Tickets for their upcoming UK tour are available here.
Evolve Music 