Not a second of Rudolph the Red‐Nosed Reggae appears on Holidays. Noted vegetarian Paul McCartney fears the red-nosed caribou. The former Wings frontman and festive coward does instead offer six songs loosely associated with the goodwill of the times. Pipes of Peace, an inevitable Wonderful Christmastime, and a selection of live offerings, which suggest the unity which comes during the weeks of winter. When you have just the one Christmas hit, it is difficult to pull an EP worth of material from out of the blue. There are few demos salvageable for the purposes of getting new ears on familiar songs. It is not as though people needed another excuse to listen to the very best festive track. But Holidays gives them one, and five borderline unrelated pieces of filler. Such is Christmas. Stocking stuffers in the worst of times. The lockdown release of these McCartney songs, or re-release rather, is telling.
It’s a relatively uninspired project which cannot make good on the festivities. Holidays is about the feeling rather than the celebration. We All Stand Together would have been an appropriate inclusion. You cannot use the excuse of copyright trouble when the knee-high hurdle Holidays has to vault is in finding the song on streaming platforms. Repackage a song in the archives and throw it out there. Wonderful Christmastime remains a mandatory listen, a brilliant opening track and the only appropriate one as it’s the only Christmas song McCartney has worth hearing. Hosanna is a bold choice, as is The Christmas Song, which few will be aware exists. Power through the remastering of Coming Up – Live at Glasgow and Pipes of Peace to get there. Both are serviceable songs, the studio version of Coming Up vastly superior, though this Scottish performance is lauded, presumably because it featured on the B-Side of the McCartney II single.
That is still not enough to cover Pipes of Peace, an admittedly solid song from an album of little quality. It’s the domestic charms, more the lit candle than anything else, which seems to fix it to Holidays. McCartney’s team has to stretch the term as thin as they can to fit six songs into the compilation. Children being born is seen as a need to celebrate, good enough for the holidays. On it goes. The same too for Lady Madonna, a baffling inclusion given the context of the release, but a very strong version of an excellent song. It’s this commitment to the theme which makes for a beleaguered release. Unity may have been a stronger title for this release, though it does not cash in on those feel-good festivities, the Christmas spirit not tapped of all its capitalist worth if not titled Holidays. We’re onto you, McCartney.
Confusing as ever is the side-stepping of songs which do fit the Christmas theme. Out of the blue comes a beautiful cover of The Christmas Song. All those feelings of indifference to the project are saved by Kisses on the Bottom. A deeper vocal, a stripped-back, lounge-like feel to the song, and it’s a certified hit from McCartney. Had it not been for Wonderful Christmastime, this would serve as a wonderful and memorable cover of the classic. Individually, these songs are exceptional, bar Pipes of Peace. Tracks which are worth hunting down. At least half of Holidays can be stored away for Christmas playlists in need of some new, lesser-known pieces. That is solid work there, and it’s hard to trample the Christmas spirit too much when McCartney is a master of it.
