Song of the Day 12/21: Low, “Just Like Christmas”

There’s a myth concerning Christmas songs, namely that no new ones are being written. The evidence: the 25-year-old “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is the most recent tune to make the muzak rotation.

People forget that didn’t happen overnight. It was released in 1994, and though it got airplay every December, it wasn’t a hit. Its acceptance soared only after it was used in the unaccountably popular 2003 holiday cheesefest “Love Actually.” That made it the ubiquitous earworm it is today.

What I’m saying is that songs don’t enter the canon overnight — it’s usually a slow build, and there’s no telling which of the scores of Christmas albums released each year, by artists working in every genre, will harbor a song that catches the public’s fancy years later. Use in a popular film helps immensely, but songs also gain traction when they’re covered by other bands. That’s the case with this song from the 1999 EP “Christmas,” released as a gift to fans by Minnesota husband-and-wife indie rockers Low.

Low was part of a sub-genre known as slowcore. Most of their output sounds like 45s being played at 33 rpm — think Cowboy Junkies slow. This tune, one of five originals on the eight-song EP, is downright jaunty by comparison. BTW, the song isn’t about the Christmas holiday — they were driving through a snowstorm in Sweden in June, and it really wasn’t like Christmas at all.

Unfortunately, the song’s only soundtrack appearances came in a 2012 British movie, “Now Is Good,” that starred Dakota Fanning and did worldwide box office of $2.2 million and 2019’s “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” which managed $33 million. “Love Actually” has done almost $250 million in the U.S. alone.

Despite its lack of wider circulation, the song is popular with other musicians. Snow Patrol covered it in 2006, the Editors in 2019, and the online versions are multiplying like Easter bunnies. The tune’s simplicity makes it easy for bands to adapt to their sound, so you get a wide variety of arrangements,

Most of the covers are by people you never heard of. Dan Croll in 2012, drenched it in multitrack harmonies.

Electro-popsters Pale Blue gave it an ethereal air in 2020.

I especially like the treatment it gets from Moscow Apartment, who released theirs last month.

The Gastown Irregulars, whom I don’t think anybody has ever heard of, added one this week.

Given the wide variety of choices, I think it’s inevitable that some version of the song eventually turns up in a movie that lots of people see.