Taylor Swift – “Christmases When You Were Mine”
Songwriters: Taylor Swift, Liz Rose and Nathan Chapman.
“For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.” — Boethius
Taylor Swift, like Boethius before her, knows that nothing can make us quite as miserable as having at one point been truly happy, and in her very cute Christmas song “Christmases When You Were Mine” she tackles the causal relationship between past joys and present miseries with tender abandon.
I love sad Christmas songs. Songs like “I’ll be home For Christmas,” “Pretty Paper,” and “Please Come Home For Christmas” are among my favorite holiday numbers, and although Swift and her co-writers didn’t hit the mark set by those tunes here, “Christmases When You Were Mine,” which was recorded for her 2007 Sounds of the Season EP, is a very cool sad Christmas song that, at the end of the day, I really enjoyed.
Of course, like all of Taylor Swift’s music, it’s totally lame too. The acoustic guitar intro sounds like something from a holiday commercial for J.C. Penny’s, the melody is a little too tender, the vocal is a little too hushed, and the occasional slight pauses are definitely too dramatic. In other words, it’s the kind of song that, unless you are a girl between the ages of 12 and 17, you should be embarrassed to have your friends overhear you listening to on your computer.
But if you’re willing to forgive this one it’s tortured, pining, acoustic sensitivity, “Christmases When You Were Mine” has more than enough legitimate content to warrant it’s existence.
What’s most notable about the song is the way the hook manages to be completely and heartbreakingly clear despite what it leaves unsaid.
“This shouldn’t be a lonely time/But there were Christmases when you were mine.”
By leaving the conceptual connection between those two lines unspoken, Swift is inviting her listeners to become engaged, and is thus allowing us to have the satisfaction that comes with making that connection ourselves.
Furthermore, considering the weight and breadth of the themes that Swift tackles here–having to go on while alienated from the familiar, having to “re-live” experiences alone that you’ll never actually live again, and having the time that is supposed to highlight a sense of togetherness and love instead highlighting their absence–her hook serves as a very concise and clear summation. And instead of just offering us mindless truisms or hollow resolutions intended to help us deal with these disconnects, as many of her mainstream contemporaries prefer, she instead presents a character who is actually dealing with those disconnects, as painful as that dealing may be. It’s refreshing, and it’s what I like the most about Swift’s work.
All and all, has this song been done before? Sure. It’s not groundbreaking. Has it been done better than this? Indeed it has. But “Christmases When You Were Mine” manages to deliver concisely when asked to sum up it’s sentiments, and it gives us a few really nice images which make it memorable, most notably in the great line “When you were putting up the lights this year/Did you notice one less pair of hands?” In the end, it is a song that, despite it’s mushiness and lame uber-sensitive aesthetic, is worthwhile and satisfying.
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December 17, 2008 at 11:30 am Permalink
I agree, it’s a decent Christmas song. Kind of reminds me of Loretta’s “It Won’t Seem Like Christmas”.
December 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm Permalink
Sorry man, couldn’t get past the first 40 seconds of it without gagging. I tried.
Just something about that whiney, teenybop style that does it to me…
December 17, 2008 at 1:47 pm Permalink
If you love sad Christmas songs, you need to check out Ronnie Bowman’s “Merry Christmas Ho Ho Ho” on Christmas Grass Volume 2.
December 17, 2008 at 2:41 pm Permalink
Sigh…Another tongue bath for the POP star on a supposed country blog. I don’t get it…
December 17, 2008 at 4:52 pm Permalink
Yet another tired Taylor Swift/Boethius comparison? It’s been done so many times already.
December 17, 2008 at 5:47 pm Permalink
Wow, nothing says Christmas to me more than…Taylor Swift? Crikey mate! My 2009 resolutions include swearing off all things Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood in perpetuity, and this song has motivated me to start early! Thanks, Jim! (lol)
Speaking of Taylor, she told Rolling Stone magazine her favorite album of 2008 is Katy Perry’s “One Of The Boys”, which doesn’t surprise me at all. Taylor’s comment: “Katy Perry has so much charisma, as soon as I heard ‘Hot N Cold,’ I fell in love.” Isn’t that special….
December 17, 2008 at 5:49 pm Permalink
Oops, Sorry Ben, I just assumed Jim Malec had written this one. Should have checked first.
December 17, 2008 at 5:54 pm Permalink
Ha, Rick, I originally assumed the same thing, though I had momentarily forgotten that Ben and Taylor used to be BFFs.:)
December 17, 2008 at 7:35 pm Permalink
I couldn’t play this song on Realplayer, so I was curious enough to just buy it from Amazon. Luckily, I didn’t really waste my money because I don’t think it’s too bad. The only thing is that I think her voice is a bit shakey. She must’ve recorded this album before the stuff on Fearless, because it’s more along the lines of the sort of organic sound of her self titled album. I like the melody and credit her for some decent lyrics.
December 17, 2008 at 9:28 pm Permalink
Didn’t know where else to put this… but this seems right:
“Just in case you missed the recent Rolling Stone magazine, let me regale you with some of its high points. Like Taylor Swift naming her favorite album of the year: Katy Perry’s One of the Boys. “Katy Perry has so much charisma, as soon as I heard ‘Hot N Cold,’ I fell in love,” Swift told RS.”
http://blog.cmt.com/
December 17, 2008 at 10:17 pm Permalink
Drew: Hot N Cold isn’t that bad of a song to be honest. =p
December 17, 2008 at 11:05 pm Permalink
It was dreadful. Sorry.. Vocally– it is one of her worst efforst yet.
I just don’t get the hype with Taylor. Am I missing something?
I am fine with the teeny boppers falling all over her, but I just don’t see any artistic merit in either her songwriting, or her terrible singing.
Miranda Lambert is the most talented songwriter of the bunch… not Taylor. Carrie also showed potential on All American Girl, etc. But Taylor’s songs to me are something a 12 year old would write. Nothing special, new, or original. She borrows other people’s themes and ideas and rehashes them. Nothing special there.
December 17, 2008 at 11:59 pm Permalink
Leave it to Taylor to come up with a song with a good melody. That’s how she’s able to have success despite the teenagery songs she sings (her other songs, not this one).
I had no problem with the song except that she hits a few of the words too hard, like she’s copying LeAnn Rimes. Otherwise, her singing style suits the tenderness of the song.
December 18, 2008 at 10:13 pm Permalink
I do not like the melody at all in this song. It is dull, dreary, and has no hook.
December 22, 2008 at 9:26 pm Permalink
Mimi said,”Sigh…Another tongue bath for the POP star on a supposed country blog. I don’t get it…”
That’s why I proposed ages ago that this site should be renamed http://www.taylorswiftfans.com. Duh…And I suspect most of the writers are teenagers. Sure most of us would like to look back on our teenage lives but to dwell and bathe in teeny bopper songs and then call them legitimate country? And praise writings about boys-boys-boys and nothing but boys is just too much. Her writing is overrated and the laurels this site seems to be putting on her head is just beyond comprehension…Every teenager in America can write those songs. Taylor Swift is just lucky she can record them.
December 22, 2008 at 10:57 pm Permalink
What really bothers me is every review of a Taylor Swift song seems to say the same thing. Shaky vocals, rehashed content, stock musicians/production, and average songwriting. For an artist that is continually touted as a great singer/songwriter, this is a bit bothersome. Inevitably, each review will say something like “if you’re a girl between 12 and 17 you’ll love this song.” Ok, that’s fine, but also inevitably she will get a thumbs up or a high album rating. It really seems like we are reaching here, simply accepting mediocre because it’s all we’ve got rather than demanding a higher bar. Oh, and I know it may seem a bit blasphemous, but I’m not that big of a Miranda Lambert fan either. There, I’ve officially ostracized myself from all camps.
December 22, 2008 at 11:24 pm Permalink
ALJID, you might want to learn how to use the search function before making baseless claims. Amongst the legitimate praise for Swift, you’ll find the following articles:
Taylor Swift – “Should’ve Said No”
Taylor Swift – “Picture To Burn”
Kellie Pickler – “Best Days of Your Life, co-written by Swift
Stagecoach Music Festival ‘08: Day Two
But don’t let those stop you from being misinformed…
December 22, 2008 at 11:53 pm Permalink
“It really seems like we are reaching here, simply accepting mediocre because it’s all we’ve got rather than demanding a higher bar.
that criticism cuts pretty deep, since not accepting mediocre because it’s all we’ve got is sort of my thing, but I was asked to give a thumbs up/down to a Christmas song.
As I stated in the review, I thought it was sappy, but then again Christmas songs are prone to sappiness.
More importantly, I thought that the song had enough to offer to justify it’s existence, which pretty much decides whether it will get the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. That system doesn’t allow for a lot of nuance, which is why I worked to add nuance to my review of the song.
The idea that once any criticism is leveled at a song, the song is then neccesarily a “thumbs down” is a pretty silly one.
Also, in answer to your objections that the song contained
“Shaky vocals, rehashed content, stock musicians/production, and average songwriting.”
on the point of shaky vocals and stock production, I’ll agree with you that these are detriments to the overall effectiveness of the song.
But “rehashed content” is sort of the bread and butter of country music as a genre. It’s whether a writer can contribute an interesting and revealing way of dealing with the tried and true concepts, whether or not they can tell an effective story that communicates those themes, that determines whether their contributions were worth the listener’s time.
In this case I felt that, despite shaky vocals and stock production, the songwriting was not, in fact average. I felt that, in the final up or down estimation, the songwriting was good enough to justify the song’s existence, so I gave it a thumbs up.
Which you are free to disagree with, but the idea that I claimed the song was all wrong and only for kids, but then turned around and gave it a positive review, ignores the time I took to specifically explain why I thought this song was deserving of a thumbs up rating.
December 23, 2008 at 12:11 am Permalink
“And I suspect most of the writers [here] are teenagers”
“Every teenager in America can write those songs. Taylor Swift is just lucky she can record them.”
With respect, you clearly haven’t read a whole lot of teenage writing. Go read some average high school newspapers and check out a few average fifteen year-old girls’ music myspaces, then come back and argue this again.
December 23, 2008 at 12:53 am Permalink
Baseless? If Swift’s songs are really good on this site, I wouldn’t be surprised if Miley Cyrus suddenly goes country you people will immediately put her to the pedestals. It takes a teenager brain to swallow swift’s songs for me. But of course, that’s just my opinion and your opinions since you lurk on this supposed country site will always be right…
December 23, 2008 at 6:47 am Permalink
Aljid, you obviously “lurk” here too.:)
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