For better or for worse, 2020 has been such a big year for new beginnings, and to close out this strange and frequently very terrible twelve months I want to propose we overhaul our go-to Christmas music staples. Pearl Charles and Michael Rault make a convincing case for The Band’s “Christmas Must Be Tonight” for the new canon, sharing their fairly faithful joint cover of the single today.
“This song by The Band has been my favorite Christmas song ever since the first time I heard it,” Charles notes. “I’ve always felt like it transcended the ‘holiday song’ genre and has become an all-year listen that holds up alongside the rest of The Band’s repertoire. It just so happens to tell the story of the birth of Jesus in the same tone and style that The Band brought to many of their other biblically themed and secular old-timey stories throughout their career.”
The cover does have much more in common with the early singles from Charles’ Magic Mirror LP—due out January 15 on Kanine Records, and which will not include this track—than it does any holiday song. “Whether you’re a Christian, someone who just wants to get into the Christmas spirit, or a Band fan interested to hear their take on one of our culture’s archetypal stories, this song is a year-round classic.”
Hear the cover below.
