David Bazan's new holiday album "Dark Sacred Night" is not a festive release filled with mistletoe, holly and happiness. The indie singer-songwriter instead offers up a batch of Yuletide songs that are quiet, moody and drenched in melancholy.
It's a song cycle aimed at anyone entering the season with conflicted feelings about Christmas. As a former Christian who has long questioned issues of faith and loss in his music, Bazan fits the bill himself.
He first came to prominence in 1995 in Pedro the Lion, an indie rock group that attracted both a Christian and secular fan base. He also did a stint in the band Headphones before going solo in 2006.
The songs on "Dark Sacred Night" were recorded between 2002 and 2011 and were originally released as 7-inch singles on Suicide Squeeze Records. The 10 tracks have been remixed, remastered and rereleased in album form by the label. The song list includes John Lennon and Yoko Ono's rock-era anthem "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and the secular "Jingle Bells." There are doleful, reworked versions of traditionals "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Silent Night" that feature additional lyrics written by Bazan.
These songs reflect his own changing faith during the near-decade in which they were recorded and his process of eventually leaving the faith altogether.
"When I was recording the first songs, I was still a self-described Christian," he says, calling from the road on his way to a gig in Boise, Idaho. "There was a shift in my perspective over the time of making those songs. The tunes are reflective of the parts of Christianity and Christmas that I was uncomfortable with already. There was a mourning for something. Even though I was a Christian, I wasn't a lockstep kind of Christian. I was probing in a way that kept me out on the margins of that culture."
He was raised an evangelical. Early in life he belonged to the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination. Although he left the church as a practicing member, Bazan still finds himself close to many religious issues.
"I don't accept or believe any of the key claims of Christianity, but I still draw from and am constantly playing, thinking and working in the biblical Christian tradition," he explains. "I'm very squarely a nonbeliever, but I still read about evangelical Christianity in the United States. I find myself sitting at the table with Christians discussing the state of Christianity. They sometimes want to hear my thoughts on it."
One of the most powerful tunes on "Dark Sacred Night" is the Bazan original "Wish My Kids Were Here." The song's narrator is a divorced father who is separated from his children on Christmas Day.
Bazan is a married father of two children, a 12-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son. Although the story in "Wish My Kids Were Here" is fictional, the idea for the song was based on some real men he has known.
"I'm acquainted with a couple of divorced dads who I felt weren't being careful enough with their kids," he says. "They weren't showing up on Saturdays when they said they would hang out with their children. When I run into that sort of thing, I'm just so baffled and hurt by it. I can't understand how a person can treat innocents with such disrespect."
Moved by the sad scenario of a father behaving badly, Bazan sat down to write a song about it. He initially meant to mock his main character but soon found himself filled with empathy for his narrator. The story evolved into a nuanced portrayal of a divorced father whose children live in a different state with their mother. A court order prevents the man from phoning his children. Although he's in a good relationship with a new girlfriend, the man is overcome with gloom at the holidays and turns to heavy drinking. At the end of the song, the phone rings on Christmas morning and the estranged father answers. He happily finds his young daughter reaching out to him from the other end of the line. It's a glimmer of light at the end of a painful story.
Bazan recruited his real-life daughter on the recording to portray the girl in the tale. It's an organic choice that gives the song a palpable air of bittersweet emotion.
"I so badly wanted relief for this character," Bazan says about the damaged father at the center of the spare and rueful tune. "I love that guy. I want him to make better choices. He should be reconciled with his kids, and I think he's on the path. There's a note of hope at the end of the song _ there's still a lot of ground that has to be covered, but it's not a dead end. His girlfriend is super supportive and she has great parents. He has some great stuff going on in his life. He won me over."
When it comes to his own holiday plans, Bazan and his family celebrate a traditional Christmas with relatives. Although he doesn't share the convictions of the majority in attendance, he enjoys the gathering.
"Everybody but me is pretty much Christian," he says about his holiday get-togethers. "I try not to be a squeaky wheel in any way at Christmas. I just stand there and cook the potatoes, cut the bird and do whatever anyone needs. In that biblical Mary and Martha dichotomy, I become Martha for the whole time. It's a way for me to serve and show that I care, whereas if I get into some of the conversations it might seem like I am ungrateful. I don't want to be a dissenter at those times. I cherish the opportunities for us to be together. Our kids get a dose of all of it. They know we respect it even if we don't practice it ourselves."
As for his own journey through Christmas and the rest of the year, Bazan remains a thoughtful seeker.
"I'm in search of something unifying, transcendent and at the root of this experience as earthlings," he says. "But I have no idea. I have no working model or doctrine about it. I want to soak up as much data about what's happening here. I think that will be the most spiritually meaningful way."
