Lonely this Christmas by Mud

Who doesn’t love a bit of glam rock at Christmas? Or for that matter, any time of the year? I’ve always loved the fun and lack of pretentiousness of this genre of music. And as such, one of my favourite Christmas songs is Lonely this Christmas by Mud.

It’s a sad song about a split up and the resulting Christmas about to be spent alone:

Try to imagine a Christmas all alone. That’s where I’ll be since you left me.

It’s also a song which expresses how when we miss others, it brings in to focus the futility of our often material obsessed lifestyles:

Try to imagine a house that’s not a home … That’s where I’ll be since you left me.

It got me thinking about something a coaching client had said to me earlier this year when we first went into lockdown. The person is a bereaved parent. They compared the experience to their experiences of bereavement, observing that people were becoming lonely as a result of not being able to choose whether they would get to see their loved ones.

I thought it was an interesting comment. The early lockdown did bring a curious experience of isolation, even though we were still able to call and video chat with our loved ones, clearly both options not available to a bereaved parent. Yet, there was still something missing, as expressed in our song:

It’ll be lonely this Christmas, without you to hold. It’ll be lonely this Christmas. Lonely and cold.

There is something about being with and around people that is not just about talking. It’s more fundamental than that, its about presence. That feeling of love and security you get when just with someone sitting saying nothing but knowing they are there for you, and you for them.

So, this Christmas, I’m going to be attempting to remember spending time with people is not just a surface level experience but is more fundamentally about really being present with them. Us being there for them, and knowing they are there for us.

Need to plan a route from feelings of isolation? Why not consider booking an appointment with the author, Dr Dave Wood?

You can find Lonely this Christmas by Mud on the album Now 100 Christmas Hits.