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My compatriots have done an excellent job highlighting music that restores the seriousness of Christmas. As a Jew (a Reconstructionist, the lit-crit version of Judaism), I don’t feel like I have a stake in this game. Outside of a few songs, there aren’t any great Hanukkah albums. My holiday music tends be Klezmer, which can be played any time of the year.

There are a handful of Christmas songs I do enjoy. Wassails and winter songs aren’t necessarily Christmas songs: they are seasonal, coinciding with the Holidays. Indeed, “Jingle Bells” was written for Thanksgiving. There are carols that are based on excellent folk tunes that can get me moving (I will play “We Three Kings” and “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” as jigs). What tends to bother me about some Christmas songs is the repeated use of the same chord progressions, composed of I-ii-Vs and IV-iii-ii-I turnarounds (see “Jingle Bell Rock”, “Frosty the Snowman”, and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”). Popular Christmas tunes tend to sound alike, which in my opinion reflects the composers’ laziness.

Among my favorite Christmas songs is The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” which could either be seen as deep and dark or over-the-top, the alternative version of It’s a Wonderful Life or the Christmas version of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. From the production standpoint, the song is impeccable: soaring strings, perfectly timed transitions, even a big dropout to give power to “the bells were ringing out on Christmas day.” From a more cynical standpoint, the song is a crass attempt at a big commercial hit: the duet with Kirsty MacColl could be construed to be a gimmick, and the New York theme and the stadium sound are things a band might employ to try to crack the American market. It’s everything to be expected and dreaded from a Christmas song.

Yet the song, almost unknown in the United States, is repeatedly chosen in Irish, British and European polls as  the most popular Christmas song. In the United States, only a small group of forty-somethings know of its existence. Even many who know and still love The Pogues (my wife included) strain to remember it. Indeed, I improvised over its melodies at some recent charity events as an entr’acte–of the many people who commented how beautiful it was, not one person could name the tune. My own feeling is that the song loses out in the US because of The Pogues’ minor stature: Americans would embrace REM’s mixture of Southern Gothic and Stax Sound as the chosen hybrid of folk and alternative. The song’s critique of American consumerism does not help.

“Fairytale” is a four-minute, three movement oratorio of personal destruction that, by its end, offers only the hope of redemption. The first third is a slow waltz played as a barroom lament. “In the drunk tank,” an Irish immigrant realizes how far he has fallen and regrets the love he has lost. It’s not unlike “Bohemian Rhapsody”: the narrator has hit what may be the end of the road. Musically, this confessional is pure schmaltz, backed with piano and gentle strings. The reference to Irish moonshining, “The Rare Old Mountain Dew,” roots the song in ethnic memory.

The jig-time second movement is a conversation between the immigrant and his love as their relationship deteriorates under the sights and sounds of New York on Christmas Eve. The holiday, American prosperity, the excitement of the city, the alcohol, and, finally, their own vices contribute to their disintegration. MacGowan and MacColl sing back and forth at a breathless pace. Tempo aside, it’s an easy melody that is simple to sing. Jem Finer and Terry Woods play the lilting melody on accordion and octave mandolin to bring the song more firmly into Irish folk music. Spider Stacy’s tin whistle joins in to counterpoint their melody. MacGowab and MacColl’s euphoria erupts into a violent argument, the couple hurling only the worst insults at each other: “Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed”. “The boys of the NYPD choir were singing ‘Galway Bay’” is sung over the IV in an uplifting manner that is typical of so many great folk songs (think “Round yon virgin, mother and child” or “the words of the prophets were written on the subway walls.”)

The third section brings back the waltz theme. Band and orchestra play together as the immigrant admits the injuries he has caused and looks for the tiniest ‘something’ on which to rebuild his relationship. “I could have been someone,” MacGowan sings. “Well, so could anyone,” MacColl retorts, “you took my dreams from me when I first found you.” The words sting, but MacColl delivers them in a deadpan manner, almost at the point of exhaustion. Having MacColl harmonize with herself over this section sounds out of place, even dated. Perhaps this was meant to emphasize that MacGowan is imagining a conversation that either he has yet to have or may never have. Regardless, the smoothness of MacColl’s delivery contrasts perfectly with MacGowan’s gruff, intoxicated singing.  It’s a realization of their interdependence and the possibility that there might be common ground between them: “can’t make it all alone, I’ve built my dreams around you.” After one more turn at the chorus, the band plays out the waltz melody backed by the lush orchestra.

“Fairytale of New York” is reality illuminated by the spirit of the Holidays—Christmas without the magic. It appears to run away from It’s a Wonderful Life: there is no divine intervention. But if there is no miracle for this couple, it’s hard to imagine they would reach this state—good and bad—if it were not Christmas Eve in the drunk tank. It allows McGowan to realize that something does really matter.

The greatest Christmas song? Maybe. “Fairytale of New York” fills two desires. It is a story with some gravitas, a representation of real-world relationships that can be re-examined and remade under the guise of the Holidays. On the other hand, it’s gorgeous pop music composed of folk themes, changing moods, uplifting choruses, and that “special holiday message.”  There is something of substance that is pulling at our heartstrings, which is what we hope we get from Holiday songs. The song is simply precious. It convinces me that there can be something special for everyone at this time of the year.

Noam Pikelny would never be mistaken for an acolyte of Earl Scruggs. He did not come to the banjo from Bluegrass, through listening to the classics of Bill Monroe and his collaborators; rather it was the other way around. He learned from players of his native Chicago and listened to the “Newgrass” records of the 1970s, particularly Bela Fleck. Playing the banjo has instead brought him to the edges of Bluegrass, developing an intuitive approach to the instrument that has made him a rising star on the “Progressive Acoustic” scene as part of Chris Thile’s Punch Brothers.

Pikelny’s style is on on display on his second solo album, Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail. It’s a mostly instrumental album in which he collaborates with stellar musicians (including Thile, Steve Martin, Jerry Douglas, and Tim O’Brien) on twelve tunes. However, what’s center stage is not these stars or even Pikelny’s own virtuosity. It’s his leadership and aesthetic that makes this perhaps the year’s best acoustic album. His playing is smooth and often melodic. He dispenses with the usual Bluegrass rolls. Moreover, he moves from the bright ringing of the open strings at the lower end of the neck to find warm and surprisingly dark tones. The result is a style that is cerebral and deceptively complex, often sounding light and deft.

None of this, though, is particularly obvious. Pikelny doesn’t take the spotlight as much as might be expected. He is a modest presence on the first three tracks, giving prominent leads to the other musicians while he establishes the compositions and moves the music forward, highlighting his collaborators. The album leads off with one of Pikelny’s tunes, “Jim Thompson’s Horse,” a complicated composition with shifting tempos and meters. After establishing a sprightly melody, the banjo moves behind the other soloists. It’s only in the last third that Pikelny comes to the fore, but to share in the group improvisation. (A download of this track can be had for an e-mail address at Pikelny’s website.)

A cover of Tom Waits’ “Fish and Bird” is one of two songs on the album. It’s a trick borrowed from bossman Thile, who plays inventive covers by Pavement, The White Stripes, even (gasp) Britney Spears. The allegory of incompatible love is delivered with heart-breaking beauty by Aoife O’Donovan. Pikelny and cohort play delicately, behind her, establishing the song’s fragility as no interpreter has before. Indeed, this should be the song’s definitive version. On the other hand, the instrumental “Bear Dog Grit” is the album’s monster. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, the tune employs the sounds of Bluegrass but would better be described as Jazz or Prog Rock. The band works through the complicated melody over a dissonant progression with breakneck speed. Fellow Punch Brothers member Chris Eldridge steps out to establish the feel of the tune. This is beyond Bluegrass. (These tracks can be sampled at Compass Record’s website.)

From start to finish, Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail is brimming with ideas.  It is full of subtle sounds and complex melodies that create a sound that is quite warm and inviting.  He may not be in the best position to shape Progressive Acoustic, appearing mostly as a sideman and an instrumentalist, but on this album, he makes a bold statement about what it could become.

You can watch this mockumentary by Funny or Die that “explains” how this became an instrumental album.

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Give Me The Banjo, the documentary that just aired nationally on PBS and can be viewed online, provides more perspective. The banjo is at the middle of a nation’s long struggle to understand both its genius and its divisions. The product of The Banjo Project, a nine-year oral history, the documentary could not come at a more appropriate time, just as the instrument is enjoying a renaissance. Pricier and heavier than the ukulele, the other instrument of the moment, the banjo rings authenticity for a new cosmopolitan generation. It is genuine. It is restless. And as narrator Steve Martin has “banjoked” in the past, it is the sound of happiness.

The documentary begins, luckily for me, with the banjo’s role as a symbol of African-American culture. Giving only a casual explanation of the instrument’s genesis and its refinement by slaves, Sweeney‘s black-faced minstrel sets off a wider discussion about how the banjo was a caricature of African-Americans. No other part of the film better attempts to connect the instrument to social changes and a broader public consumed with understanding its identity. Indeed, the efforts of enthusiasts and scholars to balance the story of racism with the genius of American music makes the beginning sections somewhat explosive.

Sections on Gus Cannon, Charlie Poole, and Pete Seeger connect the banjo to the mobility of Americans in the early 20th century. Gus Cannon’s story is interwoven with interviews with the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Dom Flemons, who helps to make cannon’s jug band blues sound vibrant. This is the film at its most irresistible, feeling both erudite and homespun at the same time. By the time “Walk Right In” becomes a revival hit in the 1960s, it’s hard to see Cannon as anything other than a genius who wrested the black image from the minstrels.

Like Cannon, Charlie Poole is the perfect archetype of the rambler caught up in modern labor migrations. The banjo holds together the narrative of drunkenness and moral lapse.  It is the sound of the daily struggle and sense of fate in the 20s and 30s. Pete Seeger‘s banjo is the tool to bring culture and politics to the people. His strumming style gave urgency to folk songs that were becoming part of the broader American consciousness. Moreover, his instructional materials made all instruments, not just the banjo, more accessible.

The film loses steam when it reaches Earl Scruggs. Although the film portrays it coming into its prowess, it seems as if the banjo lost its cultural importance. It’s merely playing a role in Bluegrass, completing it, but no longer reflecting broader social trends. Yet Bluegrass is the expression of Appalachian culture coping with modernity, something which is completely lost to the film. Perhaps the interviewees were unwilling to examine their own assumptions about the relationship between Bluegrass and tradition. However, I was left wondering why Scruggs’ third finger, which created that rolling, unceasing pointillism, was more important than Cannon’s slide or Seeger’s hammer-ons and pull-offs. How does the banjo move the “high and lonesome”? Did the instrument of the people lose out to the virtuoso?

After Mike Seeger (RIP) explains how the banjo is a conduit to rediscovering America’s rural traditions, the rest of the film focuses on those who bring greater musicianship and technique to the instrument. Of course, the film ends by reminding us that the banjo never goes away, that it is always a vehicle for communities to gather, share and celebrate. The film never takes on the air of a Ken Burns’ documentary.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to note what’s left out. The banjo-ukes, mandolin banjos, guitar banjos appear almost entirely in archival footage. The tenor banjo, a staple of Celtic music, receives only brief mention. These inventive hybrids of the banjo were important to early acoustic and electric recording as engineers struggled to find instruments that could project adequately. The sound of the Jazz Age record was the sound of the banjo. This is a film about the five-string banjo and, arguably, its place in Bluegrass. There is little of Bourbon Street.

Nonetheless, Give Me The Banjo is a loving portrait that might encourage someone to drop some bills on some of Cannon’s Jug Stompers, maybe the Bluegrass Boys, or 50s and 60s folk. It may even inspire more extravagant purchases. If anything, Give Me The Banjo should encourage a wider audience to see the banjo not as a product of America’s backwaters, but the meeting place of rural and modern America. OK, give me the banjo, just get someone else to play it.

Watch Give Me The Banjo

Preview of Give Me The Banjo