Grinch Alert
Last year, following the travesty of Gary Jules, there was much in-pub joshery about how miserable piano-led covers would be the HOT NEW THING. Ha ha, we smugly thought, it will never ACTUALLY happen. But here on Radio 1 is Chris Martin doing a version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in a style that can only be called “Gary Jules”. The song says that Christmas is “merry” – but Chris M sounds sad omg the depth of the man!
Admittedly the distance Chrizza must travel to reach Jules-land is small. But even so it’s a desperate precedent. It suggests that turning Wobs songs into foot-dragging dirges is a right and proper thing to be doing, indeed a sensitive and thoughtful response to the season. It also suggests (tho I think I lost this battle a while back) that “Mad World” was actually a Christmas song after all!