"River" is barely a Christmas song, despite opening with the lyrics "It's comin' on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, they're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace," sung to a mournful off-key variation of "Jingle Bells" (which itself isn't necessarily a Christmas song, either). Although Mitchell recorded "River" in 1971, it didn't take off as a holiday standard until Linda Ronstadt covered it in her album "Merry Little Christmas" in 2000.
Still . . . It has everything I look for in a Christmas song. Melancholy. Nostalgia. Lamenting lost love. Longing for simpler times in a different place with deeper roots.
When she wrote "River," Mitchell was a Canadian transplant living in Los Angeles. Aside from being an emotionally raw break-up song, "River" has a deep undercurrent of homesickness, too. I relate. I lived my childhood in South Dakota, where we had prodigious snowfall and really did skate on frozen ponds. Then I moved to a part of northern California where it never snows. It's not quite as dramatic as the contrast between Mitchell's hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and sunny southern California, but every winter I get wistful. Christmas just isn't Christmas to me if you can go outdoors in a short-sleeved shirt.
More than 400 other artists have recorded versions of "River," and Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 247 on its list of "500 Best Songs of All Time." Plus: it's Joni Mitchell. Hard to go wrong.
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