Snow Patrol - 'Crack The Shutters'
You can blame seasonal affective disorder if you wish, but I've been mentally calling this song 'Shut The Crackers' ever since the Snow Patrol album first arrived on my desk. And now it is being released as the band's big stab for Christmas No.3 status (after the X-Factor winner and whichever old school festive classic takes the public's fancy this year).
The thing is, when I first realised this, I thought "oh yeah! They're putting out their Christmas song in time for Christmas, how fitting..." without taking the time to remember that it's only ME that thinks the song is about those little bang-tubes you keep on your Christmas dinner table. As far as Gary Lightbody and co are concerned, it's a song about windows...and not Microsoft windows either. Real ones.
Of course, this being Snow Patrol, the song does sound kind of wintry and sparkly, like a tinsel scarf on a snow-man, and it is suffused with a blossoming sense of overpowering emotion - the kind of emotion you feel when you're halfway through your pile of presents and you've already had everything you thought you wanted, and there's a really big, exciting-looking box under the tree with your name on it.
If this sounds like an exciting description, but you've not heard the song yet, don't bother watching the video. Just think about 'Chasing Cars', or 'Run' or 'Open Your Eyes' or 'Chocolate' or any of the other Snow Patrol songs (apart from 'Take Back The City', that one was marginally different) and you're basically there. A bold new direction, this is not.
In fact, the Snow Patrol approach to songwriting seems suspiciously easy to those of us who have yet to be won over by their work. Get a fairly self-contained but short fragment of melody, whisper it four times over a quiet, wafty mulch of echoes and sparkles, then move on to the chorus. This is usually another tiny snippet of tune, repeated four times (or possibly twice, if it's a relatively long one), but the gentle calm of the verses has been replaced by a cavernous, booming puffball of music - not so much a wall of sound as an entire council estate.
Another verse, two more choruses, and maybe an instrumental interlude and that's yer lot.
And the thing is, it's Christmas, it's a season in which being uncharitable or cruel is frowned upon. It's a time of year when old songs get dusted down and reworked all the time (hi Leona!). So it would be wrong to dismiss this just because it's the usual Snow Patrol song, albeit one with a comically confusing title (to me).
So, let's just say that this is something of an unwanted jumper. Surplus to requirements, fluffy, and entirely predictable, but somehow forgiveable as it's Christmas.
Just imagine how different things could have been if they had only gone with 'Shut The Crackers' after all...
Download: Out now
CD Released: December 15th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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