Amanda Shires will release her first-ever Christmas album, ‘For Christmas’, on 12th November 2021 via Thirty Tigers.
The first track from the album, ‘Gone For Christmas’, has been released today to stream and download. It features The McCrary Sisters, who feature on several of the album’s tracks.
The music video is co-created and directed by Shires and Deren Ney. It reflects the songās empowering sentiment, with Shires playfully strutting in a variety of scenes with carefree abandon, while shots pan to her own private plane and radio station, both on her Christmas-wish-list. Ā
Speaking about the track Amanda explains, āāGone for ChristmasāĀ is a truth. You’re going to ask for things for Christmas, so what do you really want? I liked the idea of the outlandish mixed with how you actually feel. We actually feel like, āOh my, I’m so tired of all this shit, and I want a different scene.ā But maybe you don’t want really that, but you just want to say extreme things. I was thinking of the ultimate Christmas list, and then at the end, I was thinking about how most of the items on it were impossible.ā Ā
OnĀ ‘For Christmas’, ShiresĀ invites the listener into a fantastically warped wonderland of her own making.Ā The album unfolds in a selection of piano songs, showing an entirely new side of Shiresās idiosyncratic mind.
Shires worked with bassist Jimbo Hart (her bandmate in Jason Isbellās 400 Unit), pianist Peter Levin (a jazz musician she met while touring with The Gregg Allman Band), guitarist Pat Buchanan (Dolly Parton, The Chicks), and drummer Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams).Ā Ā
TheĀ album features nine original songs and two covers, including Frank Loesserās ‘What Are You Doing New Yearās Eve?’Ā and a darkly-charged reimagining of ‘Silent Night’.Ā
Shires is part of The Highwomen alongside Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile and Natalie Hemby.