Joey Canyon – Colorado Christmas (Single Review)

Three years after its release, country musician Joey Canyon is back for a review of an old single, ‘Colorado Christmas’.

I was first introduced to Joey Canyon’s work through his previous single, ‘Lonely Love’ – a track that sits comfortably within the realm of romance and relationship dynamics.

While ‘Colorado Christmas’ leans into the seemingly uncontested warmth of holiday tradition, it serves as a contrast to what came later. In his subsequent single, ‘Lonely Love’, Joey Canyon moved away from this seasonal comfort to tackle the far more prickly and complicated issues of the heart.

In my review of ‘Lonely Love’, I noted Joey Canyon’s use of a deep, restrained register – a vocal signature that avoids unnecessary flourish. Those same hallmarks anchor ‘Colorado Christmas’, hinting that his steady, understated delivery might be a consistent thread throughout his discography.

In ‘Colorado Christmas’, we first meet our lyrical persona on Christmas Eve, looking ‘out the window of this Hollywood hotel’. What the lyrical persona doesn’t see perhaps matters as much, if not more, than what they see: they don’t see no silver bells, and it ‘hardly ever snows’, they realize. But I guess what’s profoundly missing are their childhood Christmases in Colorado when they were just a boy, in the morning running to see the Christmas tree.

This speaks to nostalgia, and perhaps the good times. Missing the childhood Christmases gnaws at them now in California, them not finding the old Christmas spirit anywhere. Here we can say that Joey Canyon’s lyrical personas are never content. They’re never satisfied.

While there’s a feeling that Christmas songs are supposed to be charming, or maybe cheesy, this one has its cynical parts: Why can’t the lyrical person make the Christmas they want, you ask yourself. Also, is Christmas only good when you’re a child?

Whatever can be said of Joey Canyon’s music, the two singles I’ve reviewed from him (this being the second), left me with questions for the lyrical personas.

Cynical in part as the song might be, my favourite line is when Joey Canyon sings, ‘The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere is the quiet Christmas in Colorado…’. It’s a beautiful line.

There are pleasing strings in the song, although some instrumentation is piercing and melancholic. There’s some bass, and what I take to be bells and the violin, with the drumming very understated.  

SCORE/Outstanding: It’s a great Christmas song. Expect some cheesiness, but also expect to be unsettled. Joey Canyon has given us something to think about.

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