Calexico Celebrates The Holidays With Cover Of John Lennon And Yoko Ono's “Happy Xmas (War ...
Calexico has released a cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Christmas classic, “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” The Tuscon, Arizona-based indie rock band featured the song on their latest holiday album, Seasonal Shift.
“I love this song and I love the universality of the lyrics and the call and response sea of voices,” vocalist and guitarist Joey Burns said in a press release. “I decided to start as quiet as possible and find out how loud and massive we could make this song build.”
The band gave a slight southwestern-twist to the original tune, which was released along with an animated lyric video. The video shows pieces of paper drifting across the screen with animated drawings of the band performing the song along with scenes of the desert. In their version, they draw out the chorus, singing the line “War is over if you want it,” several more times than the original.
“We decided to not stop as the original had and see what would happen if we kept the trance and mantra going. This is something that we would do live onstage a lot and felt really good to try it at home in our makeshift studios scattered around the globe,” Burns said.
Source: Maia Anderson/music.mxdwn.com
