The Pagan Music List 27: Yule and Solstice songs
The PAGAN MUSIC LIST is an attempt to create a comprehensive list of Pagan, Heathen, Esoteric, Animist, and related music that we listen to and love. We include embedded YouTube, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp links when possible for each artist.
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Collection 27
Yule & Solstice Edition
A short collection of songs for the winter holidays
Tori Amos:
What Child, Nowell and Holly, Ivy, and Rose
True to her deep and justified criticisms of Christianity, Tori Amos’s 2009 album “Midwinter Graces” contains several songs which use familiar Christmas themes but with a subtle re-write. “What Child, Nowell” is a particularly brilliant example of these. By slightly modifying the lyrics and playing with the pronunciation of Nöel, the song becomes a beautiful pagan lament for the destruction of the old ways:
This is winter's gift
This is what begins..
Born this day a new no-well…
Also beautiful is her take on two songs which she grafts together: “Holly, Ivy, and Rose”
The Moon and the Nightspirit
Ég Felé
Several songs from The Moon and the Nightspirit deal with winter solstice themes from Hungarian paganism. Ég Felé (towards heaven) references the death of the dark of winter and the desire of all life reaching up to the sky after that death.
Björk
Jólakötturinn
Icelandic folklore speaks of a family of gigantic beings which wreak havoc on humans during Yule, including Jólakötturinn, a giant cat. Jólakötturinn hunts in the snow for people who have not received new clothes to wear on Yule, and then…eats them.
Sowulo
Yule (instrumental)
We’ve discussed Sowulo in a previous edition of the Pagan Music List. Their instrumental, Yule, is definitely worth adding to this list.
Loreena McKennit
Snow
Loreena McKennit released a short album in 1987 called “To Drive The Cold Winter Away,” with several songs that could be included in the list. Our favorite one is the haunting track, “Snow.”
Kate Rusby
Cornish Wassailing
Kate Rusby’s 2015 release, “The Frost is All Around,” is full of the brilliant English folk singer’s take on lesser-known traditional songs. Wassailing is a tradition that pre-dates Christianity and Christmas, and her song “Cornish Wassailing” possesses all of her signature wry and innocent joy.