The Corrs famously sang, where do you go when you’re lonely, where do you go when your blue in their 2002 hit “When The Stars Go Blue”. I bring up this song because while listening to the new holiday offering “Just Like Xmas (Love Is War)” from Tom Tikka & The Missing Hubcaps, I felt like I knew where Tikka goes. He goes on a stroll. He reflects on a Christmas that isn’t the kind you see painted on a Christmas card. Tikka’s beguiling song, which glows at the end, has some stirring moments and hints of brilliances. This is the song that captures the season, and an inside look at the soul of a man faced with solitude.
An acoustic guitar and a piano open the song. It’s light and airy, but when Tikka begins to sing, he’s rooted in an Americana or folk singer. He’s intimate sounding, a stark contrast to the large sound brewing beneath his vocal delivery. The song keeps building and expanding. Tikka sings with a slight breathy, gripping timbre. I think the song’s mood calls upon him to transverse the holiday sadness, the loneliness in the song’s beginning. Perhaps you will remember that I’m you’re man, he pines. He sings like he’s staring out the window, the snow coming down. His coffee is getting cold because he’s too ‘down’ to even drink it. I came to create a backstory in my head of writing the lyrics down on a piece of paper with coffee-cup stains and his scratched out words. You just feel the anguish and inner turmoil. His heart is broken.
“Just Like Xmas (Love Is War)” has moments of dissonance. The elaborate piano and calming acoustic guitar open to an Earth-shaking drum and even a flash of horns. It’s Christmas after all and there is always a time to rejoice. The church bells ring, the children sing, a happier, a brighter Tikka sings. He has a delicious habit, much like Morrissey and The Smiths, of piercing the heart with a lyrical knife but smooth it with the same butter knife. There is much to be said about a song that takes you to a place in your heart that you don’t want to live, let alone visit, but the holidays creep up on and make you face the music. “Just Like Xmas (Love Is War)” gets over the melancholy hurdle and ends on a high note. Did I mention how much I loved the symphonic horns? That brass makes it sound like Christmas and feels homey.
Tom Tikka & The Missing Hubcaps have had a productive 2020. Their five-track EP Insane has much to be celebrated. Among the EP’s standouts are “Sweet Sugar” and “Summer Means New Love”. As Tikka leaves the door wide open to his that he fearlessly wears on his sleeve, his holiday gift to the one’s the need a nudge to remind them that it’s okay to feel the way you feel is in “Just Like Xmas (Love Is War)”. Love can be a battle, but it’s one that does eventually end.
Jodi Marxbury