God rest ye...

 This comes courtesy of an (earlier) post from Kelly Sedinger, part of his "Daily Dose of Christmas" series, where he often finds overlooked gems for those of us who love everything to do with Christmas.

This year, it's Annie Lennox's rendition (I guess it's about a decade old?) of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

One of the reasons I like this rendition so much - liked it instantly on hearing it - is what I might call the "wildness" of it. It is, as some commenters suggested, kind of medieval sounding. I may think of it wrong, but I imagine Christmas in medieval times was a time of relief - for one thing, a potent reminder that this life, no matter how dreadful, how much of a grind, how unfair, was not the ONLY life. But also that Christmas was a time of celebration and feasting, at a time when I imagine for most people, such things were rare. (Oh, I'm sure the aristocracy and maybe some in the upper echelons of Church hierarchy had good food and perhaps even enough warmth most of the time, but ordinary folk did not). 

I also find it fascinating how Lennox reinvents herself every couple years. I remember back in the 1980s, her buzz-cut dyed-red hair, and her aggressively masculine clothing....and now, here, she's part pagan chieftan, part Victorian troubadour...of course the voice does not change and she sounds really good on the traditional things. 

I am perhaps predisposed to like this; I like "old sounding" music and I like to think about a time when Christmas was less about agonizing over the "right" gift for people and similar, and more, really, just a celebration of, as I said, relief - "oh, yes, Christ is born again in this sad old world"

And yes, maybe it's a bit self-consciously "aesthetic" but I am not bothered by that