So Tired is NOT a Christmas song. It's a song about end of year exhaustion that happens to reach its apex during the festive season.
Everything will be alright in the end though because there is someone looking out for you, keeping you from falling off the edge, keeping you smiling throughout the many hardships thrown your way, again and again.
"Everything, everything makes sense when I'm with you, it's all crystal clear, crystal clear, before it turns back blue"
A mantra for 2020 So Tired is a brief pause of reflection, a sigh of frustration and resignation at the mundanity of this most repetitive year. The constant bleep of the check out, the condensation fogging the bus window shuttling you home to a brief sense of warmth before the cycle begins again.
Employing the help of super-producer Ruáiri Lynch aka Bantum (Loah, Royal Yellow, Le Boom) to give it a more mechanical, industrious sound. It echoes the lives of those on the production line, the shelf-stacker, the nurses and carers. The lives of those that were once deemed unskilled workers that society has now realised are our key workers. 2020 has been the year of the front line, the bottom line and the end of the line. If there is hope, it is in the abandonment of a society fuelled by self-interest. Take care of yourself and each other.
Following in a long lineage of bands with songs called 'So Tired' ( The Beatles, Fugazi, Nap Eyes, Ozzy Osbourne), the influences for this track lie closer to Matt Berninger, Michael Stipe and Fiona Apple.
A solo effort, with a lot of help and community spirit.
All song sales go to the Peter McVerry Trust.
lyrics
I'm so tired
Tired and blue
I work Christmas time
Every year
Just to get us through
But everything, everything
Makes sense when I'm with you
It's all crystal clear, crystal clear
Before it turns back blue
Ahhhhhhhhh
Ooooohhhhh
I'm so tired
Tired and blue
So tired
Tired of you
So tired
Tired of you
So tired
Tired and blue
credits
from So Tired / Christmas is in your Heart,
track released December 4, 2020
Written, composed and performed by Niall Jackson
Produced by Ruáiri Lynch aka Bantum