"Christmas in My Soul," Laura Nyro (Columbia)

You really have to be in the right mood for this tune, taken from Laura's classic 1971 LP Christmas and the Beads of Sweat. It's long, about seven minutes, and it takes a while to get to the point, plus the loud-soft dynamics are rather abrupt. She starts out solo, with lengthy pauses between verses and piano chords, finally getting into a slow soul-gospel groove near the end. Verses referring to "Black Panther brothers," "Chicago Seven" and "homeless Indians" are pretty dated nowadays, but other lines like "Madonnas weep for wars of hell, they blow out the candles and haunt Noel" or "The sins of politics, the politics of sin" still resonate.