Christmas songs ran out of steam at some point in the mid-1990s. Yes, we’ve had “Christmas Time” by The Darkness and “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande – but nobody’s rushing to put them on the aux at Christmas house parties. The culture is crying out for a fresh yuletide anthem, for something new to screech as you stagger home from the pub on Christmas Eve and wake up all your neighbours. Happily, salvation may be on its way in the unlikely form of Lil Nas X. The country/hip-hop artist is releasing a Christmas single, Holiday, later this week, and yesterday dropped a teaser trailer.The teaser sees Lil Nas X time-travel back to a Wild West frontier town, where Santa is getting chucked out of a tavern for being drunk and disorderly. After a quick chat with Michael J Fox (the whole thing is a nod to Back to the Future III) Lil Nas X takes over Santa’s sleigh and flies off, presumably to save Christmas. The single drops this Friday, the 13th of November. Let’s hope it’s a banger: after the year we’ve had, goodness knows we could all use some festive cheer.
