I love me some Mary Chapin Carpenter, as I believe I’ve said before, so a Christmas album from her was an automatic buy. On Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas, Carpenter includes only a handful of familiar carols, and even those are not exactly the holiday’s greatest hits: “Once in Royal David’s City,” “Still Still Still,” and “Children Go Where I Send Thee.” The rest of the album is made up of Carpenter originals and one song each by folk musicians Robin and Linda Williams and English choral music master John Rutter.
Come Darkness, Come Light expresses the contemplative side of Carpenter’s personality, which is a part I like, but three or four songs into this record, I was ready for something with a little more life it it. All of the songs are quiet and thoughtful and tasteful, and after a while they all start to sound alike, so you need to be paying attention at the end, since that’s where the strongest songs on the album are located. “Thanksgiving Song” is a worthy addition for a holiday that doesn’t have many songs of its own. “Christmas Carol” features a reminiscence about getting the Beatles’ White Album for Christmas in 1968 (as so many did), although it’s docked points for rhyming the words “Christmas joy” with “every girl and boy,” and also for its woefully generic title. The spiritual “Children Go Where I Send Thee” closes the album, and although it strains patience a little bit (like “The 12 Days of Christmas,” it repeats verses over and over for eight minutes plus), it’s the liveliest thing on the record. (A bonus download of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is available at iTunes, and although I haven’t heard it, it’s apparently more traditionally cheery. If so, it probably wouldn’t fit on the album.)
It occurs to me that my ambivalence about Come Darkness, Come Light might have to do with when I listened to it. This is a Christmas Eve record, I think—put it on after the kids have gone to bed, when it’s just you and your sweetie and a couple of glasses of wine, and it’ll sound great. But it’s not an album to put on in the car when you’re running from mall to mall, or when you’ve got a party going on.
Recommended Reading: The New York Times on the revival of interest in vinyl (h/t to the Vinyl District).
Cheers jb!