Sunflower Thieves
5 December 2023
It’s a quiet, distant chiming which puts you under some sort of snowy spell – and what makes this such a well-crafted song. Maybe it’s just me, but I think the bell is a kind of beautiful phonestheme. That’s when a word (or song) sounds like what it means. Twinkle sounds twinkly, sludge sounds sludgy… It’s Not Like The Christmas Films tells the story of a lonely soul trying its hardest to join in with the festive spirit, but longing for some kind of companionship to make it happen. Give this song a listen and wait for the lost bell.
Music addressed to the child inside is always so bittersweet, and there’s no more nostalgic a time than Christmas. It’s the perfect concoction of seasonal depression, reminiscence, desire for innocence, fairy lights…exploding into a Christmas ballad that heaves at the heartstrings. It has that heart wrenching adieu to youth spirit you might recognise from Mitski’s Class of 2013, Del Rey’s White Dress or Swift and Bridger’s Nothing New.
Sunflower Thieves mix these gorgeous primal sentences that capture childhood eyes (“she’s cold and she’s tired and she wants to go home”) with sombre, more mature ones (“I’m too old to play outside”) and I can’t help but to feel a sense of tearing catharsis. Like, I’m about to cry but then I’m rescued. Soothed by the winding double tracked vocals Sunflower Thieves have mastered so well.
The song builds outwards so gradually, like some kind of clever pointillism canvas. With each step back you can make out a little more of the lyrical landscape. The TV, the fairy lights, the snowy road, the doctor’s office that’s closed… But it just keeps unfolding and expanding so slowly and indefinitely, one additional instrument at a time, led by the lonely bell. It makes this very sweet ode to the anti-climax that December can be. The revved-up anticipation, the way we look to Christmas time as some kind of miracle cure.
CHRISTMAS TIME: All-purpose MIRACLE CURE. Take for any and all winter related ailments, ingest twice daily from December 23rd to January 1st. Side effects include: addiction to shmaltzy crooner music and Nora Ephron movies.
Sunflower Thieves give us a gentle warning to question this collective medicinal hysteria: “The bad news on the TV doesn’t go away for Christmas, and neither does any sadness you may be carrying with you – in fact, the festivities often seem to highlight this melancholy.” It sounds pessimistic and glum, but I think it’s sweet really. Like a friendly blanket wrapping you like a gift, sliding you under the tree and telling you it’s ok to want to run hide in the shadows, even when you’re under twinkling lights. The way I hear it, the band aren’t telling us not to hang up lights, or join in with the fun. Just, perhaps not to lay all our hopes on tinsel to keep gloom at bay.
Have a little lie down and let this lilting lullaby lift the weight of Christmas expectations of your chest. Merry Christmas x