Christmas is a time of tradition and cliches, but if there's one artist who manages to address the festive season with full enthusiasm but in a altogether alternative manner, it is the Detroit-born, Brooklyn-based singer. Stevens has recorded numerous Christmas songs and carols, but always with a new style and perspective. He has released two multiple EP selections of these, in 2006's five-EP Songs for Christmas, and then 2012's five-EP set Silver & Gold, for which this is the concluding track. Surreal and full of seasonal parody, the unicorn plays with ideas of myth, commercial hypocrisy, pagan religious ritual and other ideas of dysfunction emotions. Is Christmas supposed to be about love? If so, listen through to around the seven-minute mark, and Stevens, using a repeated chorus into a canon or sung round format, begins to integrate the most unexpected of Christmas melodies into this song, Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. For anyone who has experienced a fraught family occasion, this might hit the right note.
I’m a Christmas unicorn
In a uniform made of gold
With a billy goat beard
And a sorceror’s shield
And mistletoe on my nose
Oh I’m a Christian holiday
I’m a symbol of original sin
I’ve a pagan tree and magical wreath
And a bowtie on my chin
Oh I’m a pagan heresy
I’m a tragic-al Catholic shrine
I’m a little bit shy with a lazy eye
And a penchant for sublime
Oh I’m a mystical apostasy
I’m a horse with a fantasy twist
Though I play all night with my magical kite
People say I don’t exist
For I make no full apology
For the category I reside
I’m a mythical mess with a treasury chest
I’m a construct of your mind
Oh I’m hysterically American
I’ve a credit card on my wrist
And I have no home nor field to roam
I will curse you with my kiss
Oh I’m a criminal pathology
With a history of medical care
I’m frantic shopper and a brave pill popper
And they say my kind are rare
But I’ve seen others in the uniform
Of a unicorn just like me
We are legions wide and we chose no sides
We are masters of mystique
For you’re a Christmas unicorn
I have seen you on the beat
You may dress in the human uniform, child
But I know you’re just like me …
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