We don’t know about you, but in London we woke up, looked outside, saw the sun cut through the cold and started the day listening to Phoebe Bridgers’ new Copycat Killer project that reimagines the best songs from her 2020 album Punisher. There’s something about her music that pairs well with winter. Maybe it’s that slight sense of desolation that runs through it, and the way she paints the most lucid, bittersweet pictures with her lyrics. It makes sense, then, that it’s become a Christmas tradition to get a chilly, festive cover from Phoebe Bridgers. And today, she’s revealed her 2020 edition.
Phoebe’s cover of “If We Make It Through December”, a 1974 track by Merle Haggard, is perfectly destined to soundtrack your dismal Xmas 2020. As gentle and spectral as her best work, it’s a song about looking forward to hope in the face of adversity. “Got laid off down at the factory / And their timing’s not the greatest in the world,” Phoebe sings, before continuing: “Heaven knows I’ve been working hard / Wanted Christmas to be right for daddy’s girl”. She dreams of being somewhere sunnier by summer, namely California. Honestly, we just want to be anywhere where life doesn’t plummet into darkness at 4pm sharp every day of the bloody week.
Money gathered from sales and streams will go to LA’s Downtown Women’s Center, so we highly recommend that you head here to buy the song and give it the love it deserves. It’s been a horrible year and Phoebe Bridgers just wants to ensure that women already suffering don’t have to worry about having a place to stay this Christmas. She’s a true angel.