The First Noel
On Songs for Christmas: Volume IV, in between two of the most popular Sufjan Christmas originals, sits a brief, fifty-ish-second mostly-instrumental nod to “The First Noel.” It’s hard to even call it a cover; it pops in and out like the soundtrack to a holiday-themed car commercial.
This isn’t an insult. The twang of the guitar feels warm like a fireplace, like the smell of dust burning in the air vents when you finally kick your heaters on for the winter. It’s familiar but in the way that a lot of the season feels familiar; nostalgic, peppermint flavored, and draped in tinsel.
As I write this, Come On! Feel the Illinoise! plays in another room. I put on my pre-generated top-songs-of-2021 playlist to play throughout the day. It’s no surprise that the same Sufjan songs I’ve heard a million times always creep their way into these lists of the sounds that fuel my days. I love the kind of library an artist like Sufjan has, where one track still feels like a surprise when I hear it again despite it being recorded two decades ago, but another I can’t imagine most days without it droning in from another room of my apartment in a city I moved to partially thanks to Stevens’ 2005 hit album soundtracking my daydreams.
Sufjan’s rendition of “The First Noel” is not an essential track, but it serves an essential purpose.
“The First Noel” is a classic Christmas song, but I don’t think anyone I know would call it their favorite. The piece is a religious testament to baby Jesus written 200-something-years ago. Its melody is memorable in that it’s a bit bizarre and feels vaguely melancholic. It doesn’t motivate consumerism but inspires that feeling of Christmas eve church service. In fact, it’s exactly the song I almost expect an artist like Sufjan to really play with and fill out. It’s a bit surprising it serves as one of his brief homages to classic Christmas songs; he did the same with “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” to name a few. I want to know the universe where he gave this song the same treatment as he gives his version of “Little Drummer Boy” or “Joy To The World.”
It’s easy to forget that this track was ever covered by Sufjan. Sandwiched in between two of my favorite Sufjan Christmas classics, “Hey Guys! It’s Christmas Time!” and “Did I Make You Cry On Christmas Day? (Well You Deserved It!),” Stevens sneaks in all fifty-five seconds of his version of The First Noel. An electric guitar carries the melody, while the only other instrument, an acoustic guitar, fills the rest of it out. When it’s time for the vocals to kick in, instead, Sufjan defaults to ‘La La La’ing’ before it all fades out into the next song. It takes the pressure off when you go to sing along and realize you only really know the first three words of the song (at least in my case). It reminds you in between two original songs that this is still a collection of Christmas songs despite the modernity he injects throughout. It’s an interlude, a buffer, and with it, it makes the two tracks around it feel just as much of a classic as this centuries-old piece. It pops in like a distant memory and doesn’t linger too long before it lets your attention go to something new.
But that’s the thing about Sufjan Stevens; regardless of how familiar it feels, his music always feels warm. It still wraps you up in your own feelings and brief glimpses into old memories. It doesn’t have to make the cut of the songs you leave on repeat to still accomplish what it aims to do. How lucky are we to celebrate holidays and endure heartaches in a world where Sufjan Stevens exists?
Mal Burns is a community organizer, filmmaker, and just another queer barista living in Chicago, Illinois. For hot takes on movies, political commentary, and socialist propaganda, you can follow them on Twitter at @localsadghoul.