Plenty of people in this world only know of Christmas as a happy time of togetherness and celebration. Unfortunately, it isn’t that way for everyone. And for people who are without companionship on December 25, what’s supposed to be the happiest of holidays can start to feel like the saddest.
Heartracer, the Richmond trio led by brothers Chris and Chip Cosby, know this very well, and they’ve proven as much with their latest tune, “Alone At Xmas.” Constituting the band’s attempt to add a new song to the canon of Christmas classics we hear endlessly every year, “Alone At Xmas” slots in most closely alongside Wham!’s legendary “Last Christmas,” in that it both summons the bittersweet lyrical mood and the electro-pop style of that 80s Christmas mainstay.
That said, both Chip and Chris have backgrounds in the emo underground, and you can hear some of that come through in this song as well. If your heart has been touched by the work of Jimmy Eat World or Something Corporate, you’re just as likely to appreciate the feel of “Alone At Xmas” — even if you do spend every December 25 in the bosom of your loving family. (And by the way, if that is you, please know how good you have it.)
Heartracer released a video for “Alone At Xmas” at the same time that the single dropped, and the video just makes the song’s heartfelt mood hit that much harder. We watch a lonely musician, portrayed by Heartracer’s Chip Cosby, deck himself out in finery to go play a solo gig at a bar on Christmas Eve. We see that his place is kind of a mess, that he’s making the ultimate lonely lifestyle by eating a Hungry Man meal for dinner, and that he’s pouring all of the holiday sentiment that his life is seemingly without into a gift he mails off to, we find out at the end of the video, the daughter he can’t be with over the holiday. Honestly, it’s a heartbreaking moment, and you don’t have to be missing your children this Christmas for it to hit home.
Heartracer’s “Alone At Xmas” really does deserve to be a fresh new addition to the Christmas-song canon, so add it to your Christmas playlists, get yourself a copy of the single on Bandcamp (priced in British pounds sterling for some reason), and watch the video above. It’ll touch your heart this holiday season.
