Thank God It's Christmas

It’s just good business sense for a musician to release a Christmas album. You see, careers come and go, but Christmas is forever. Long after people have forgotten “Emotions”, “Dreamlover”, and “Fantasy”, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” will still be a beloved holiday classic. However while many artists, both established (Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney) and one-hit wonders (Billy Squier, Wizzard), have created immortal Christmas tracks, some huge stars miss the mark for some reason. Britney Spears, for example, surely will never understand why her “My Only Wish This Year” didn’t become a perennial favorite. Another example of this is Queen, who in 1984 recorded their own forgotten Christmas tune, “Thank God it’s Christmas”.

The song is surprisingly minimalist for a band known for their bombast and theatricality. Much of it is simply Freddy Mercury’s voice accompanied by a synth drum loop and a soft organ playing in the background, with the occasional addition of a subtle guitar or sleigh bell accompaniment. Mercury sings passionately of Christmas being a welcome respite from the painful year he’s had, and that pain and optimism is reflected perfectly in his famously emotive voice. Even without the benefit of operatic harmonies and Brian May’s epic guitar, it manages to be a pretty epic song.

“Thank God it’s Christmas” was never included on a studio album until over a decade after its release as a single, at which point it was crammed into a greatest hits collection. It doesn’t get much (if any) airplay, so most people don’t even know it exists. But do yourself a favor and dig up this forgotten track this holiday season – only Freddy Mercury could pull off something that is so powerfully melancholy and hopeful in equal measures. Well okay, maybe also Stevie Wonder.