Come the end-of-year holidays, I get a bit down; not sure why, but we all have our things. And, I deal with it, usually well enough, especially when there aren’t people constantly telling me “snap out of it” (with our without slaps from 80’s Cher), and that I’m supposed to be excessivly cheery during this period of the year.

The whole “enforced jolly” thing just makes it worse. If you know me at all, you know I don’t do excessive cheer on the best of days; the entire Holiday-Industrial Complex is built on telling me to be something I’m not particularly good at. There’s nothing at all wrong with me, this is just my time of the year to be a little Emo.

I do, however, draw the line at Black Eyeliner.

One of the ways I deal with my holiday down-cycles is to dive into decidedly non-holiday music; partly because I’m just so damned contrary, but mostly because so few Christmas tunes show any kind of real creativity and genuine emotion, just more of the socially mandated charade of empty merriment expressed through tired holiday tropes and some jingle bells buried in the percussion mix.

Anyway, here’s what came up on my holiday-averse mp3 mix this morning:

1. “Soap Star Joe” – Liz Phair
2. “Barroom Hero” – Dropkick Murphys
3. “Burn Your Life Down” – Tegan and Sara
4. “Signs” – Tesla
5. “Until The Day I Die” – that dog.
6. “Can’t Hardly Wait” – The Replacements
7. “Kill Your Remix” – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
8. “Rhiad and the Bedouins” – Guns N’ Roses
9. “Pride (In The Name of Love)” – U2
10. “Inbetween Days” – The Cure

Bonus: If I were to want to listen to a Christmas song today, it’d be “River”, written by Joni Mitchell. I’ve written of it before; it’s so beautifully depressing. I like the Indigo Girls version the best.