Your Advent soundtrack

A playlist for the Advent season (no Christmas tunes allowed)

Photo by Lee Campbell on Unsplash

The season of Advent begins tomorrow, the start of the Christian calendar, an alternative telling of time. It provides a counter-cultural contrast to the high, holy festival of holiday consumerism.

Advent has a distinct feel and vibe to it. Certainly out of sync with what you catch in most stores or commercials, marked by holly-jolly or sappy-sentimental. Advent traditionally has a more sober and penitential feel to it. It’s a time of what some call “bright sadness,” a genuine mourning as we take stock of all that remains broken and twisted. It’s a season for broken hearts, for those disillusioned with the life that’s on offer in our day, leaving us longing for Jesus to come and set things right. And so Advent has this future focus, a tip-toe hoping for more, for new creation. It’s a hope aimed not at the first coming of Christ but his second coming.

During these weeks of Advent, the world around us has plunged into Christmas. It’s all baby Jesus, elves, Christmas bells, roasting chestnuts, and winter festivals. I don’t want to be a Scrooge about this, but keeping the season of Advent is significant.

I’ve found one helpful way for me to live into Advent while being immersed in the cacophony of Christmas is Advent music - which is not Christmas music! I’m not a purist on this (I’ll get into some Christmas tunes throughout the season), but I’ve been collecting a few songs that are part of my Advent playlist. They are generally quieter, songs filled with a distinct sense of longing. Often songs about waiting (and, admittedly, songs reflective of my more folkish musical tastes).

I’ll share my playlist here with some scattered and occasional commentary - but I would love to hear from you - what would you put on an Advent playlist?

A Beginning Song - the Decemberists: Advent is the beginning of the Christian calendar, so let’s “commence to coordinate our sights / get them square to rights.” No doubt Colin Meloy (lead singer of the Decemberists and avowed atheist) didn’t write this as an Advent song, but that’s the wonder of God’s common grace: we can find so many resonances and reflections of God in the work of non-Christians, all part of the bigger reality and story that God is working in this world.

There’s so many lyrical resonances with Advent: “Condescend to calm this riot in your mind / find yourself in time, find yourself in time” – Advent orients us within God’s accounting of time and history.

“I am waiting, should I be waiting / I am wanting, should I be wanting / when all around me” – this chorus repeats throughout the song. Advent is a season of waiting. We celebrate the first coming of Christ but we’re left wondering: “should we still be waiting, wanting when all around me is hunger and addiction, Gaza and Ukraine, a world of brokenness and terror?”

“the light, bright light / and the light, bright light / bright light / bright light / is all around me.” The song ends by answering that lingering question of the repeated chorus. Is there something around me in this world that might call from me more than despair? At this point in the song there’s a hush that enters in, slowing down the pace to allow for wonder, but then building up to it’s conclusion, singing out the stubborn and fierce Advent answer of hope – “when all around me … “the light, bright light / and the light, bright light / bright light / bright light / is all around me / it’s all around me / all around me.” Every time I hear this, I join in, wanting to yell it out, this longing, this echo of “Maranatha – come, Lord Jesus.”

O come, o come Emmanuel - Sufjan Stevens: it’s an Advent classic, pitch-perfect in lyric and melody. There are so many excellent versions to choose from that you can’t go wrong, and you do well to include a few in your playlist. But let me recommend Sufjan Steven’s version, a spare piano with only the chorus sung.

Wait for the Lord - Jacques Berthier and Taize: Classic. Contemplative. Needn’t say more.

How long? - BiFrost Arts: a lament for Advent, putting the case to God, a hopeful pestering him with his promises. (Porter’s Gate also does a good version).

O day of peace - Josh Garrells: Josh has such a unique voice. The quivering falsetto catches the vulnerability in Advent hope. A haunting, hopeful longing for Christ’s reign of peace.

Drive out the darkness - the Porter’s Gate: You’ll find a number of songs here from the Porters Gate collective. But this one gathers the deep heart-ache and reaching hope of Advent.

When God comes close - Church of the beloved: oh my, this moves me to tears when I hear it - gorgeous vocals and the invitation to imagine what happens when God comes close. “Maybe the healing of a heart, maybe the reunion of a drift apart, maybe a child coming home, only heaven knows what happens when God comes close.”

Lo! How a rose e’er blooming - Sufjan Stevens: this choice blurs the line between Advent and Christmas. But it’s wintry, rooted in Isaiah’s prophecies, and Sufjan’s glockenspiel, banjo, guitar and halting delivery are perfect.

Magnificat (Holy is His Name) - Steve Bell: Steve’s album The Feast of Seasons is a wonderful mix of Advent and Christmas songs. Steve’s rendition of the Magnificat sings me into the story; I’m right there with Mary, sharing her wonder and worship.

Something bright, Something Shining - Praytell & Jon Guerra - technically, Simeon gets us into Christmas. But this song of frail faith, echoing Simeon’s faithful longing, has Advent written all over it. (“I need you God to find me.”)

Waiting on the world to change - John Mayer: This song begins in an Advent groove, a funky song of helplessness, starting where Advent does, with “the recognition that human progress is a deception.” (Fleming Rutledge). But it ends as an anti-Advent song - the Advent longing for more but minus the hope. The song resolved with a misplaced hope that the next generation will finally get it right, so you’ll need to follow it up with …

Surely, it is God who saves - Uptown worship band: a Louisiana-like jazzy, bluesy remedy to John Mayer’s, and our, helpless cry, singing the hope of Isaiah 11.

Comfort, ye my people - Chicago Metro Pres Music: Handel’s Messiah in an unexpected genre, capturing all the gospel longing and hope but with accordion, banjo, and mandolin. It works.

Slow me down - Jon Guerra, Sandra McCracken and the Porter’s Gate: not necessarily an Advent song but with December always so hurried and harried, I find I need Jesus to "teach me how to rest.”

First Song of Isaiah - Advent Birmingham: This is an absolutely delightful song - aimed at children but its bright, ukulele driven rendition of Isaiah 12 captures my heart.

Joy will come - Paul Zach, Liz Vice, Charles Jones: there’s a quiet fierceness here, a musical raised fist against all that’s dark and broken.

Sigh no more - Mumford and Sons: a rousing musical romp of a confessional, leaving you longing for a “love that will not betray you / dismay or enslave you, it will set you free.” Get lost in the power of the music – kneel, weep, pray and then jump and dance in hopeful anticipation of the glory to come.

Every ditch, every valley - Ordinary Time: if Isaiah was Appalachian - a fantastic rendition of Isaiah 40.

The Reign of Mercy - Porter’s Gate: a simple guitar strum, spare piano and the sweetly gentle voices of Paul Zach and Lauren Plank Goans provide an intimate invitation to welcome the person and reign of Jesus.

But for you who fear my name - The Welcome Wagon: it’s really hard to categorize the Welcome Wagon - it’s like a living room jam with family and friends bringing whatever instruments they might have on hand. A great song of Malachi 4:2.

Come Thou Fount - Audrey Assad: a classic hymn that is perfect for Advent. Think of the verse: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” This is an Advent confession, all the ways we are lost without God. Again, so many versions to choose from.

Make a way - The Porter’s Gate: I don’t know how Porter’s Gate do it but they consistently produce songs that are lyrically rich and musically beautiful. I love the chorus of “make a way” - pleading and insistent at the same time.

The Wedding Feast - The Porter’s Gate: the wedding feast is the repeated image capturing the fulfilled promise in Christ’s second coming. Listen and feel the hope bathe your imagination, and ready you for Christmas.

Come thou long expected Jesus - Steve Bell: probably the only song to end Advent on. “Let us find our rest in thee … joy of every longing heart.”

I’m part of the Apple cult so here is my Advent Soundtrack playlist on Apple Music.

(Ed. thanks to Mark Peterkins for creating a Spotify version of this playlist, which you can find here)

And again, I would love to hear what Advent songs you have found get you into an Advent frame of heart.