“Before This Christmas Ends” – a Christmas song for Queer People.

CW: mention of eating disorders

"A part of me has always loved Christmas music, but it’s always come with the price of feeling disheartened by the picture-perfect holiday fairytale out there. 'Before This Christmas Ends' falls in line with my mission to upend the romantic script we’ve been taught and inspire others that there’s another paradigm out there," shares beccs.

Image: Outfront Magazine - https://www.outfrontmagazine.com/trending/sound-up-beccs/

beccs is an NYC-based singer/songwriter who grew up in a musical family. She described herself as “the entertainer” of her family who always sang. She started songwriting at the age of 16 at the onset of her eating disorder and cites songwriting “as a means of survival”. When asked what drives her in her music, she tells PARDON that “the need to say what I want to say how I want to say it in the way I want to say it. The breadth of what I want to say is vast but all related. On the surface, I aim to disturb and nourish.”

Her new single “Before This Christmas Ends” is about falling love with your best friend. The singer’s inspiration for this song comes in response to the plethora of holiday films that are about strangers falling in love. It’s no secret that queer people have a hard time at Christmas. Closeted or not, there always seems to be some kind of boundary between queer people and having a fairy-tale Christmas complete with a romance. In a society in which the Christmas industry revolves around family and romance, it can be upsetting. beccs doesn’t expect to be a voice for everyone but the song removes that anxiety and pressure, choosing instead to focus on the warmth of finding love at Christmas. The lyrics are charming and tender, the singer doesn’t need the grandness of a fairy-tale romance, she just wants the simplicity of being with her friend. 

“I think the culture around Christmas is sort of twofold. It’s about family but it’s also widely driven by advertising. Depending on one’s particular situation, I suspect both have the potential to be quite isolating for someone queer. If your family doesn’t accept you, if the images you’re being sold don’t represent you, Christmas can be tricky, perhaps darker than tricky for some if not many. Because the Christmas industry is still driven by the mainstream it seems, the narratives are pretty slim. Like I’m genuinely shocked there aren’t more queer Christmas songs and films.”

Images: Youtube

The music video displays this emotion beautifully. The visuals to accompany the lines “Searching in the eyes of a stranger/ For a promise of someone who’ll be the one/ But what if we just fell in love with/ the ones we know we already love” stand out to me - the singer gazes at her friend on the subway as if realising at this moment that she does indeed love her. The last scene depicting the two friends simply looking at each other after hearing the song exacerbates this mood. There’s no dramatic romantic kiss or cheesy declarations of love. But there’s a quiet tenderness, intimacy and uncertainty between the two; we don’t find out what happens because they don’t know what’s going to happen themselves. Love that grows between friends can be so rich and fulfilling but also scary. The question “what if it ruins the friendship” is a large sword to be hanging over a relationship. But beccs and her queer artistic team shift the perspective from one of dread to one of excitement and anticipation; “It’s about something less impermanent than a kiss” (beccs). People, especially queer people, are deserving of love, especially at Christmas. As her publicist, Kirsten Horner says, “When the holidays can be hard for some queer folks, it's nice to be reminded of the pure joy we experience when we fall in love.”

So, support beccs and her creative team for more of this wholesome energy for queer people, because honestly? We fucking deserve it.  It’s available on Spotify and Youtube! (watch below!)

P.S. For those queer people who are struggling this holiday season, the Switchboard LGBT can be contacted via phone, email or online chat. Stay safe and Happy Holidays my loves.

By Amandeep Paul.

(she/her)

IG: xx.amandeep

Amandeep is a TV. Film & Entertainment writer @ PARDON! read more about her on our TEAM! page.