FEATURE:
Don't Let the Mystery Go, Now
Kate Bush’s December Will Be Magic Again at Forty-Four
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THE Christmas song is something…
that a lot of artists tackle. With mixed results. In the case of Kate Bush, she released two. The lesser-known one is Home for Christmas. It originally appeared in the BBC’s The Comic Strip Presents… film, Wild Turkey, screened on 24th December, 1992. A bit of a lost gem, Home For Christmas was released as the B-side to the U.K .single, Moments of Pleasure, and as the B-side to the U.S. single, Rubberband Girl. It is a bit niche I guess. Christmas songs can only really be played at a particular time of year, so fewer people hear them and they can be buried amidst the classics. The second (and first-released) Christmas song, and best-known is December Will Be Magic Again. It was released as a single on 17th November, 1980. I want to write about it as it gets a lot of stick:
“Critical response
Released in November, critics in the UK were quick to reach their verdict in the various music papers.
Looks like we’ll have to endure that fairy Kate Bush… over the cash-register season… Kate is “cute”… and no doubt you’ll be force fed, as you will with turkey.
Andy Gill, NME, 29 November 1980
Sounding like she’s just been rutted from the rear with a particularly rampant reindeer, Kate reminds us of the joys of the season at considerable length and expense. Lush, sentimental, extravagantly produced… destined to become a Christmas irritation; and airwave itch you won’t be able to scratch.
Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 6 December 1980”.
There is something about a Christmas song that is very subjective. Judged on different merits and metrics compared to an ordinary song. Compared against a narrow number of songs rather than anything else. If December Will Be Magic Again was wintery or something that was about the season or month and not Christmas, it would not have been seen as lesser or judged as harshly as it was by some. I think it is a great song and one that is always heartwarming to hear this time of the year. As we are in November, it is only a matter of time before this song is on the airwaves!
It is a shame that there is no music video for this single. I sort of thought Bush might put an animation to it recently. A song I think she likes, it would be great to have a new video for it. However, the track was premiered during the Christmas Snowtime Special in December 1979, though it was not a single release until 17th November, 1980. It was the follow-up single to Army Dreamers. Quite a musical shift! Though it only reached twenty-nine in the U.K., it has taken on a life of its own since 1980. Now more regarded and played more, I would rank December Will Be Magic Again alongside the best Christmas tracks. The Christmas imagery and classic visions are present right from the off: “December will be magic again/Take a husky to the ice/While Bing Crosby sings White Christmas. He makes you feel nice/December will be magic again/Old Saint Nicholas up the chimney/Just a-popping up in my memory”. I will mention December Will Be Magic Again when I talk about her Christmas special, Kate, that was broadcast on 28th December, 1979. Rare that the Christmas single was officially released so long after it was performed on T.V. There is not much written about a wonderful jewel that is sprinkled with snow and lovers. The imagery Bush weaves through the song. How her voice dances and glistens through the track! I want to highlight part of this Dreams of Orgonon feature about December Will Be Magic Again:
“With “December Will Be Magic Again,” we’re in considerably less serious territory. A one-off Christmas single with no attachment to an album, it dallies in its own winter wonderland, cordoning itself off from Kate Bush’s more serious contemporary work. When pop singers do Christmas songs, they’re usually partaking in a tradition of cheerful odes to Yuletide (with some notable exceptions). “December Will Be Magic Again” is one of these songs, abdicating its status as a contemporary of Never for Ever in favor of filling the Christmas single slot. Yet Bush couldn’t settle for even her Christmas fluff being drab traditionalism, and fucked around with it a bit.
You see, a lot of Christmas standards hail from the 70s and 80s and are created by artists such as Paul McCartney and Wham! These songs are often little more than lists of Christmas activities and odes to sitting around trees with your family. It’s a saccharine tradition that buys into capitalist notions of Christmas and giving corporations lots of money. To be sure, Christmas activities are often fun — no form of leisure is free of capitalist maleficence. But at its core, modern Christmas is as much a commercial enterprise as it is a global family tradition.
Bush doesn’t completely break from this pattern, as “December” is straightforwardly nostalgic. From the longing for the past implied by its title to its dwelling on childhood images, the song spends it runtime on a reconstruction of Christmas childhood memories. Bush settles into the falsetto end of her vocal range, singing lots of high notes with a wonder usually only prepubescents can manage. Bush has exactly the sort of voice which makes lyrics like “take a husky to the ice/while Bing Crosby sings “White Christmas”/he makes you feel nice” sound cutely intuitive in a way we’re not prone to seeing in things like “Wonderful Christmastime.”
Yet for its exercise in nostalgia, it separates itself from the mainstream of Christmas music by being a little too eccentric to be quite marketable (the song did pretty well in the charts, but was far from one of Bush’s bestselling singles). Bush’s own East Wickham childhood makes its way into the song. She has a refreshing tendency to lean on her own interests in her songwriting, which liberates “December” from feeling too commercial. There are the obvious references to staples of Christmastime like “old Saint Nicholas) (who is grossly maligned by the entire UK as “Father Christmas”) and romantic traditions (“kiss under mistletoe”), but they’re balanced by images of Oscar Wilde showing up: “light the candle lights/to conjure Mr. Wilde/ooh, it’s quiet inside/here in Oscar’s mind.” The reference is clunky, with two uses of “light” in a single clause accompanied by some strange stuff about dwelling in Wilde’s head (“it’s quiet in here/inside Oscar’s mind”). Yet it’s an oddly poignant choice of creative minds to dive into: Wilde’s idiosyncratic wit often responded to darkness in his personal life. As a queer man in Victorian England, Wilde’s status as popular author was diminished by his demotion to subhumanity for his sexual orientation. In some ways, true recognition for him came later when millions of people read his work and celebrated him as both a great creator of the fantastical and a queer icon, including a little The Happy Prince fan called Catherine Bush
Recorded at London AIR Studios in 1979. Performed on 22 December for BBC Snowtime Special and 28 December for “Kate” special. Single version recorded in November 1980. Released as a single on 17 November 1980”.
I do like how Bush decided to record this Christmas song. Many artists avoid it because they don’t like to or feel it is perhaps a waste of time. If it is not tied to an album and there is no real benefit in scoring a high chart position for a Christmas song then they sit it out. I love the T.V. performances of the song but don’t think they quite do the song justice. I have written about December Will Be Magic Again a few times now and I always sort of have to defend it as people take against it. Again, it is that thing about Christmas songs only compared to other Christmas songs. It is hard to measure up to Mariah Carey or Wham! However, December Will Be Magic Again is a lost Kate Bush treasure! An overlooked song that is given a heavier pounding because it is competing with other Christmas songs. I love her writing. It is simple yet distinctively her: “Oh, I’m coming to cover the lovers/Ooh, and I’m coming to sparkle the dark up/Ooh, and I’m coming to cover the muck up”. I have seen December Will Be Magic Again included in listings of her best songs, though it is quite rare. I hope that this year is one where the song is given no light and appreciation. It would be good maybe to see a fan-made animation for the song. A young Kate Bush maybe watching over a town being blanketed in snow as we see inside houses as Christmas Eve unfolds. In 2023, Prog included December Will Be Magic Again in their top forty Kate Bush songs feature:
“This seasonal tune made its debut in December 1979 when Bush performed it on Kate, the BBC’s Kate Bush Christmas special.
That Joe Payne: “Like much of Kate’s stuff from that era, it’s a real fusion of classical and contemporary and I just adore the lyrics [to this single]: ‘Jumping down in my parachute; the white city, she is so beautiful/Upon the black-soot icicled roofs, see how I fall, like the snow…’
“Wow, what imagery! She was already a huge influence on me way before hearing this song, but I have to say that it’s the theatrical sensibilities that always draw me in. She sets a great example to anyone who wonders where the line is between art and entertainment and reminds me that there’s nothing wrong with aspiring to both”.
The Guardian placed December Will Be Magic Again twenty-fifth in their ranking of every Kate Bush single. There are twenty-nine to choose from. However, as they placed The Man I Love at twenty-six and called it “very nice, but inessential”, you can’t really trust anything they say! Insanity on their part! I still hold a soft spot for December Will Be Magic Again. So do many fans. When we hear the song played, we know we are getting near Christmas. I think it is one of the first tracks played, as its title does not mention Christmas, so we can’t get away with it! The Guardian wrote how 2011’s 50 Words for Snow – not a Christmas album but winter-themed – was stronger and had potential Christmas singles. They wrote “…but her first attempt at a Christmas single 31 years earlier fell oddly flat, never quite sounding as magical as its title suggests”. I would argue that the twinkling and brilliant December Will Be Magic Again possesses…
PLENTY of magic.