We here at Americana UK get a lot of song offers for features throughout the year. And from late October a number, an increasing number as the days pass into November, are Yuletide themed. The joys of banjos and snow and fatted geese (or suitable Vegan alternative) and folk-rock so hard it edges towards metal. We love Christmas. Mainly because of the banjos, snow, and fatted geese (or suitable Vegan alternative) – but we love Christmas songs as well. If there’s a huge argument or someone passing out drunk in the snow so much the better. Tradition – we’re all about tradition.
Which is the rambling preamble to this new – and short lived – special Tracks feature. Jingle Bells Friday is here to help kick-start your festive season. For the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you fresh Christmassy sounds. Not all of them will be new songs, but darn they will be fresh.
And how better to start than with Andrew Bird‘s Covid Christmas ballad which questions whether it’ll be possible to meet under the mistletoe this year.
Liz Longley, however, has a more hopeful view – although this is also a Covid inspired Christmas song, this time holding out a hope for families getting together.
On ‘This Time of Year‘ Melissa Ferrick makes the heartfelt statement that this year is one we’ll be glad to see the back of. It’s from the charity album ‘A Rock By The Sea Christmas‘ which has some great people on it, and is raising funds for paediatric cancer research.
https://soundcloud.com/rbts-v11/melissa-ferrick-this-time-of?in=rbts-v11/sets/a-rock-by-the-sea-christmas-vol-11
When Oklahoma Americana duo The Imaginaries filmed the video for their new original festive season song ‘Hometown Christmas‘ they were keen to capture that feeling of being “where everyone knows your name” – but they also respected Chickasha (that’s home town) enough to make sure they Socially Distanced. Good job !
Frank Solivan has also been musing on 2020 not being the greatest year (although November 4th was a redeemer!) on record – so he’s harked back to a happier simpler time. We told you there’d be banjos….
