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Oct 27, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird is releasing a new Christmas album, Hark!, this Friday via Loma Vista. Now he has shared another song from it, “Christmas in April,” which is an original song inspired by COVID-19 and how it might impact celebrating the holidays this year. “When will we know if we can meet under the mistletoe?” asks Bird in the song. He’s also shared a live video of him performing the song. Watch and listen below.

Bird had this to say about the song in a press release: “There were those various stages of acceptance we all went through at first while our brains tried to process how disruptive COVID would be (remember when we thought it would be two weeks?). By April I was looking ahead to the holidays and wondering if/when I’d see my folks, knowing that there were millions of people thinking the same thing. Those kinds of universally shared moments are rare in this fractured world.”

Previously Bird shared the album’s first single, a cover of John Cale’s “Andalucia,” via an animated video for it. The album features original songs, new takes on holiday classics, and covers of songs by John Prine and Handsome Family. Hark! is an expansion of Bird’s 2019 EP of the same name, featuring five of that EP’s six tracks, along with eight new tracks. It’s due out digitally this Friday, with a red vinyl release on November 13.

Bird had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “Let’s not talk about the dubious motives that might lead an artist to make a holiday record. It’s a complicated relationship many of us have with the holidays and the requisite music we hear. So let’s admit that it’s a utilitarian thing. The music is just one contributing factor to our communal or solitary joy and melancholy. As a musician, it’s an excuse to take a break from writing the next record and indulge in an unapologetically nostalgic exercise. I’ve done my best to find some lesser known gems. A passing reference to wintertime sentiment is all it takes to make the cut on Hark! A mention of snow falling in John Cale’s ‘Andalucia,’ a namecheck of Christmas in John Prine’s ‘Souvenirs’ or as the setting of the drunken fiasco in the Handsome Family’s ‘So Much Wine,’ remade as ‘Greenwine.’

“There’s an original tune I wrote in April during the most disorienting phase of the pandemic, when I couldn’t help but wonder where we’ll be when the holidays come, if we could be together or not. I’ve been writing a lot of songs inspired by this uninspiring predicament. Let’s hope they all become obsolete as soon as possible.

“Anyway, I hope you enjoy Hark! And that it underscores better times.”

Last year Bird was cast as Thurman Smutny in the new season of FX’s crime anthology show Fargo and the season premiered in September. Bird’s last album was 2019’s My Finest Work Yet. In April Bird shared a new song, “Capital Crimes,” via a video for the track. The song was about capital punishment and was one of our Songs of the Week.

Read our interview with Andrew Bird on My Finest Work Yet.

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