Words: Rosie Russell
Bleachers have struck a chord with their highly anticipated new track, ‘Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call.’ The song pleads with an old love not to try to reconnect during the holiday season, emphasizing that the path of nostalgia can look tempting but ultimately leads back to pain. It’s a reminder: this is not an invitation to reach out!
Jack Antonoff has been incredibly busy over the past few years, producing some of the best albums of the last decade. Yet, he has quietly released this deeply introspective track with his band, showcasing his remarkable talent in the music industry. While Antonoff doesn’t create solely with Taylor Swift in mind, I believe this song serves as a poignant response to her 2021 track “’Tis the Damn Season” from the *Evermore* album—one of my all-time favourites. The themes of returning home and reflecting on past relationships resonate. It reminds us that reconnecting can often lead to more complications, despite the allure of rekindling those old flames.
With lyrics like ‘and the toughest part is that we both know what happened to you, why you’re out on your own,’ the song highlights the profound impact that certain people have on our lives. Even if we wish them well, the presence or return of these individuals can rekindle bad habits that we have tried to leave behind.
The line ‘And time is strangely calm now ‘cause everybody’s gone now, it’s just you and your anger’ encapsulates the solitude and reflection that often accompany the holiday season, and how living and chasing nostalgia can more often than not just make everything so much worse for us.
This beautiful song has been in the works for over two years, and its final form is a hauntingly gorgeous track. It evokes a sense of nostalgia that makes listeners want to sit on a train as the snow falls outside, gazing out the window and pondering what might have been—while ultimately feeling grateful for how things turned out.
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