Writing (or rather… re-writing) a Christmas song into a Yule song has become an annual tradition for me. Last year, I released O Solstice Night. And the year before that, I released We Two Kings.
The only problem is… this year, with trying to wrap up my book, I was kind of short on time for other things. Re-writing a song and releasing it is kind of a time-consuming process. First off, you’ve got to listen to a bunch of classic Christmas songs to find one that inspires you. Then you have to re-write the lyrics in a way that hopefully matches the theme or feel of the original. And then it’s time to figure out the music vibe, make some recordings, produce the track, and… oh yeah, make a music video.
Luckily, Christiana Gaudet had done half of that work for me. Last year, she shared a version of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” that was re-written with a Pagan theme and transformed into “O Come Returning Sun King.” In turn, I shared that with all of you in an article.
I loved the lyrics and couldn’t get them out of my head, so I asked her I could record it for this year’s release.
She said, “Totally yes!!!!!!”
With six exclamation marks.
So here’s what I came up with…
Lyrics
O come, returning Sun King bring your warmth
Prepare us for this cycle of rebirth
We wait in silent darkness here
For the first rays of springtime to appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! The yule log brightly burns
The wheel of the year now turns
O come the day after the longest night
With each day welcome the returning light
Let light grow within the heart
And joyful healing to our souls impart.
Rejoice! Rejoice! The yule log brightly burns
The wheel of the year now turns.
O come thou Kings of Oak and Holly true
And let your mythic battle now ensue
Oak is once more crowned our King
To reign over the bounty of the spring.
Rejoice! Rejoice! The yule log brightly burns
The wheel of the year now turns.-Lyrics by Christiana Gaudet
Behind the Scenes
At first, I wasn’t completely certain which direction I wanted to go in, musically speaking. I sat around for a while and played on my acoustic, trying to see what might form organically. The melody felt like it needed a barebones intro with some echoey vocals, and plenty of space for other things to kick in later, but I still wasn’t sure which way to go. Should it be long and reverent? Should it be fast and poppy?
I mean, what’s the overall vibe of the lyrics? I’d have to say it’s on the darker side of things. When I read Christiana’s words, I see things in black and white. We’re talking about Yule, here, literally the longest night of the year, the “silent darkness.” But something has to pop eventually, or we won’t have reason to “rejoice, rejoice.”
I tracked two guitars — one in standard tuning and the other in drop d, but capoed at the 5th fret. This allowed for similar chords to be played, but in completely different voicings, which fills out the sound a little bit.
But it needed to be bigger. And bigger usually means… bass. So I played in a rhythmic bassline and added a synth patch to occupy some of the sub frequencies.
I really thought there would be a full drum track. I experimented with a bunch of different sounds, but every time I added drums, it actually took away from the sound. It was distracting, especially when adding hi-hats. Of all things, I actually drew some strange inspiration from Bush’s Glycerine. There’s no drums in that entire song, but the chunky rhythms of the guitars propel the arrangement forward. I thought I could do a similar thing here — and I think I more or less accomplished it. I did add one single kick drum sample, though, which simply functions like a heartbeat for the song. It’s side-chained to the bass tracks, so all of the low end swells in and out with every hit (subtle, yes, and probably easy to miss for most people unless you’re listening with an engineer’s ear). And if you listen closely to the last minute or so, you’ll hear some staccato strings — those help add to the rhythm as well.
As for the music video, I guess there’s two possible ways you could look at it. The first way would be to understand that there’s incredibly deep symbolism in all the imagery and that many of the shots, in at least some small way, have an element that lines up to the lyrics you’re hearing. The second way to look at it would be that I just filmed random moments of my day due to time contraints. The choice I’ll leave up to you.
Please go give it a listen! I hope you enjoy.
Aerik Arkadian 
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