While the standards are playing on the radio, here’s a great Christmas song you won’t hear all the time. 

Billy Joel has thus far avoided the requirement of every successful singer/songwriter:  recording or at least contributing a track to a Christmas CD.  Perhaps he expressed religious reservations because of his Judaism, but Billy Fans are most likely grateful our hero won’t be crooning “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” anytime soon.

The Christmas spirit hasn’t totally eluded Billy Joel, however.  On his hugely successful and perhaps definitive CD, The Nylon Curtain, Billy has graced the holiday with She’s Right On Time.  The track is mostly focused on his relationship with a woman who manages to appear in his life just when he needs her.  The beauty of the song is found in its upbeat, yet mature spirit: the singer is one who has known his share of heartache, and knows life isn’t all it could be…but he’s hoping for better days all the same.  This woman gives him reason for this hope…and reason to deck the halls:

Turn on all the Christmas lights/’Cause baby’s coming home tonight/I can hear her footsteps in the street

Turn the choral music higher/pile more wood upon the fire/that should make the atmosphere complete

I’ve had to wait forever/but better late than never

She’s just in time for me/she’s right on time/she’s right where she should be/she’s right on time

Listening to the song from a faith perspective, I wonder too if the listener might find reason to celebrate our God, who is always right on time?  While we may have our own schedules for how the events of life should transpire, when we look back, we often see how things worked out just the way they needed to…in God’s time.

And it occurred to me/while I set up my Christmas tree/she never missed a cue or lost a beat

Everytime I lost the meter/there she was where I would need her/greeting me with footsteps in the street

I guess I should have known it/she’d find the perfect moment

God is good, all the time.

Maria’s Hidden Christmas Tracks: