The Christmas post where I live in Northern Italy was in tilt this year, the result of some misguided management overhaul.
Similarly, I only got to hear Malcolm Middleton's sobering antidote to the season of good will in early January. By then, it had already failed in its long shot stab at becoming the Christmas Number One and justified the bookmaker's pessimistic 1000-1 odds.
More regrettably, the ex-Arab Strap man's Scrooge-like take on mortality is also destined to fall short of shaking up the smug complacency of Cliff Richard fans.
Taken from the supercharged Bitter Sweet album - already enthusiastically endorsed elsewhere on W & H - the song's power pop assault is the opposite of funereal. The point of the exercise presumably being to celebrate existence than dwelling on our demise. I’ll buy that. After all, as MM reminds us "Dying is a bit like writing to Santa. Unless you've been a good boy or girl you're fucked".
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Certainly, it seems to me more healthy to sing along with this irreverent slice of realism than be deadened by yet another rendition of John & Yoko's factually inaccurate 'War Is Over' .
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