Courtney Marie Andrews

Courtney Marie Andrews covers ”I'll Be Home For Christmas” (listen)

Not only is it already year-end list season but it’s time for holiday music too? Time flies. Courtney Marie Andrews (who, coincidentally, is on Rough Trade Shops’ Top 100 LPs of 2017 list) contributed a version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” to Amazon’s Acoustic Christmas playlist, and we’re premiering the song in this post. Courtney has a real Joni Mitchell quality to her voice on this song, and the stripped-down folky rendition is a very nice take on the familiar song. Here’s what Courtney tells us about it:

This song couldn’t speak truer words about how a musician feels around the holidays. This stunning classic feels comforting to sing for someone who spends almost the entire year out on the road. It paints a humble picture of yearning and hopefulness, while never revealing if the narrator will fulfill his promise of returning home for the holidays. We decided to go with a raw live sound, as to not taint the classic nature of the song.

Listen below.

Courtney Marie Andrews’ latest album is last year’s Honest Life (which got released in the UK this year, hence being eligible for Rough Trade’s list). This year, she released a Will Oldham collaboration for Our First 100 Days, and she is currently on tour with Hamilton Leithauser. We caught the Brooklyn Steel show.

Amazon’s Acoustic Christmas also has contributions from Josh Ritter, Nicki Bluhm, Sera Cahoone, Lori McKenna and more. Amazon are also once again doing their Indie for the Holidays playlist, which this year includes Kevin Morby, The Lemon Twigs, Best Coast, JEFF the Brotherhood, Albert Hammond Jr, Jessica Lea Mayfield, and more.