’Tis the season for snippets of music and DIY videos! This December has seen intimately conspiratorial, up-close-and-personal videos from a pair of feisty female artists, Welsh singer/songwriter Violet Skies and American alt-rock icon Fiona Apple. Though both new songs are ostensibly Christmas-themed, neither of them could be classified as jovial or jolly.

Violet Skies, who we met at SXSW 2016, has composed an original holiday tune, aptly titled ‘Little Sad Christmas Song’. Arranged simply for keyboard and her own soulful singing voice, Violet Skies’ track is forlorn rather than festive as she sings “We both know you’re not coming home for Christmas / and we both know I couldn’t make you stay.” Her wistfully wintery vocal tone might not be chock full of Christmas cheer, but it’s nonetheless appropriate for the season.

Fiona Apple (pictured at top) takes a far more bitter tone in her remarkably witty parody of a Christmas classic. Her pointedly political remake of ‘The Christmas Song’ is unambiguously subtitled ‘Trump’s Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire’, in a less-than-celebratory reference to the recent American presidential election. Though it appears that Apple’s parody was originally intended just for a devoted fan club Web site, Apple also performed it live last Sunday night at a Los Angeles area benefit for the Standing Rock Sioux. Barbed lyrics like “everybody knows some money and entitlement / can help to make the season white” are a stark reminder of where American society stands as the 2016 holidays approach.

Click here to view the embedded video.

TGTF’s previous coverage of Violet Skies can be found right here.  Our archive of Fiona Apple coverage is back this way.

The post (Holiday!) Video(s) of the Moment #2255: Violet Skies and Fiona Apple appeared first on There Goes The Fear, a UK/US/IE Music Web site.