1973
WHAT DO THE LONELY DO AT CHRISTMAS * THE EMOTIONS * STAX 1056 * USA
This spine chilling emotional inquiry into the question of how the lonely spend their time over the Christmas period, represents a small section of the type of records that fall outside of the two main groupings: The seriously sentimental Christmas is a wonderful snowy time of year type, and the largely tongue-in-cheek happy but a little irreverent where's that naughty Santa type. On What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas the central theme is loneliness and Christmas is just used almost as an arbitrary example to highlight the intensity of the situation, which, for me, mitigates any gratuitous sentimentality that many other Christmas records often have. The Emotions were three sisters lead by Sheila with Wanda and Jeanette Hutchinson: the cut was released as the B side to Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin' (an example of the irreverent type) by Albert King, nether side was released in the UK.