It’s sort of a rite of passage for a country singer to record a Christmas album or song. Country stars young and old have celebrated the holiday season through music, with many reinventing timeless songs such as “Blue Christmas,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Silent Night.”
Country singers have also crafted their fair share of original Christmas songs. Merle Haggard‘s “If We Make it Through December,” George Strait‘s “Christmas Cookies,” and Alan Jackson‘s “Let It Be Christmas” are all examples of original country Christmas tunes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5wUz7XrCPU
Since Keith Urban has been on the scene for nearly three decades now, you’d think he’d at least have one Christmas record under his belt. But that’s not the case!
Until recently, Urban had never released any Christmas music…not even any covers.
Granted, Urban has performed Christmas songs before. There are plenty of videos online of him singing classics such as “White Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
But when it came to releasing his first official Christmas song, Urban wanted to make something entirely new. Hence why it took him so long to release a holiday track.
“I’ve always wanted to record a Christmas song, but I really wanted to try and write something new,” Nash Country Daily quotes Urban as saying.
So he sat down with songwriter Shane McAnally and penned a song that became his first-ever Christmas track, “I’ll Be Your Santa Tonight.”
It should be all green and gold watching snow ❄️ "I'll Be Your Santa Tonight" out now • https://t.co/powokd8jYa #SantaTonight pic.twitter.com/OgOpBIWKkO
— Keith Urban (@KeithUrban) November 20, 2019
Urban says the song is all “about a Christmas gone terribly wrong.”
“No snow. Too much fog. Nobody can make it to the party. It’s going to be a colorless Christmas, until her man comes through,” he said.
Urban dropped the song’s official audio in November, then released its music video on December 5. The clip shows a formally dressed Urban singing in the midst of a winter wonderland, surrounded by tall pine trees covered in a dusting of snow.
Urban said he always envisioned a simple video for the song:
“I wanted to keep the video loose and a bit more performance-based than the actual story line, because everybody has their own version of what a song should look like, so I didn’t want to touch on that too much.”
We’d say he accomplished his goal! Head below to check out the official music video for Urban’s first Christmas song “I’ll Be Your Santa Tonight.”
Merry Christmas everyone!