Christmas, 6/8, and antipasto - Confessions of a Chord Junkie

Let me set the scene: Christmas decorations are out. We are chopping up veggies for our traditional antipasto, something we do every Christmas. The Christmas playlist is on. There’s chatting and singing and it’s just super cozy. Most of the Christmas songs are familiar as we are singing along but I’ve snuck some new songs onto the playlist just freshen things up.

I love Robbie Williams – he’s my go-to for music to draw to, and when I saw that he had a Christmas album, I thought I’d just throw the whole album on our family Christmas playlist. Quite a few originals on this album, which is always nice.

This song has been living in my head ever since I first heard it so I knew I just needed to write up a quickie post for it. I heard first heard it a few weeks ago and the audio was enough to stop me in my tracks…and then I pulled up it up on YouTube. I don’t think I’ve seen a more heartwarming video.

Every once in a while, a chord progression will creep up and surprise me and GOSH do I ever live for those moments. This song starts simply enough with a 6/8 time signature, a time signature that evokes ice skating to me (go ahead – pretend you’re ice skating to this song. It’s perfect, right??) and a guitar strumming in the key of E-flat, from the I to the IV, and then strings join in. Now add the quintessential sparkling chimes. So far, it’s delivering on all the Christmas sounds one expects and is fitting right into the background of our antipasto-making sesh. Perfect. Then…the ears perk up. Ooh, that was unexpected…a bit of foreshadowing?

At 0:45, we get a nod to John Lennon’s ‘Happy Christmas’ with the children singing, and even their melody line feels like it’s straight out of this song. A little too on-the-nose for me, but I forgive it because it does really add to the cozy, to be honest.

Now the chorus starts – an Eb chord with Robbie singing a G (a lovely comforting, perfectly hit third) and then progresses to an F and Eb before the chord changes to Ab and he meets it up there with the melody line. So far, comforting and predictable, but here’s where my ear went “what was that??” Moving from the Ab chord (IV), Robbie’s made the absolutely tear-inducing choice (well, if you’re me, anyway) to move to a Dbmaj7 (a flat VII) which made me completely stop in my tracks. Robbie sings an F in this chord, another comforting third, before moving back to the root of Eb.

I realize this isn’t a groundbreaking D7flat9dim11#6 or anything. It’s just a flat VII, and a major 7 chord to boot which is usually not my favourite chord in the world. I’ve been sitting with this song for a while, trying to figure out why it’s affected me so, and I can’t really put my finger on it. For one, Db is my favourite note, and therefore my favourite chord, and I do love it when chords go out of pocket, such as a flat VII, but other than that, I really have no explanation. The 6/8 time signature definitely contributes – what is it about 6/8 that is so cozy? Each time this chord appears in the song, the goosebumps run up and down my arms, even though I now know it’s coming.

The bridge is rather interesting – we’ve moved from Eb to Cmin(add2) to start off this bridge, and there are a couple of bluesy flat 3’s Robbie sings in his melody line which add some extra interest here, before moving into one more repeat of the chorus.

Some day I will delve deeper into why 6/8 evokes that feeling, and perhaps some day I will be able to tell why, exactly, a Dbmaj7 chord gives me goosebumps. What are some of your favourite warm and cozy Christmas songs? What time signature are they in? (Perhaps next year I’ll wax poetic on the Christmas tunes of my other fave, Roger Whittaker.) It’s just fascinating how music affects people in such different ways.

Merry Christmas, faves.

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