In September, Phoebe Bridgers released one of the year’s best debut albums, Stranger In The Alps, on Dead Oceans. It’s an intimate and highly-detailed recording where the listener gets to know the interworkings of Bridgers mind. Loneliness, love, and death are all explored with care and precision, with keen insight that doesn’t betray her youth. It’s music that might sound even better as the weather gets colder, with the closeness that’s Bridgers’ lyricism evokes conducive for bundling up and trying to get warm.
Still, Bridgers’ new version of the holiday classic “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” might be more fitting for the season than any of her originals. She gives a haunting take on the nostalgic classic, even having the ghost that appears on her LP’s cover reprising its role at a Christmas scene for the single’s artwork. There’s nothing physical about her specters, but rather it’s more a feeling or a memory that she can’t shake as she rings in the holiday. With enchanting harmonies and moody atmospherics, Bridgers’ Christmas song is beautifully melancholic, turning traditional celebratory tropes into something more personal and reflective.
Listen to Phoebe Bridgers’ excellent take on “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” below and read our interview with Bridgers here.
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