Haim have celebrated the final evening of Hanukkah by delivering a reworked cover of Waitresses’ 1981 classic, ‘Christmas Wrapping.’
Este, Danielle and Alana enlisted the help of Thundercat on the bass and playwright Jeremy O. Harris on the lyrics to rework the festive ditty into a scathing takedown of the hellfire that was 2020.
It’s a nice little supercut all the ugly and beautiful parts of this insane year we’ve lived through. The band explore the mundanities of the coronavirus pandemic like the sexual recession, TikTok addiction and skincare woes (“My menorah’s lost/I’m breaking out/Depressed from having zero sex/Dad interjects, ‘Latkes a mess’/The Cuisinart stopped working”.) And the slightly more positive goings-on like Trump losing the election, Tom Hanks not succumbing to coronavirus, and Zendaya winning an Emmy.
The track arrives with a truly excellent music video that takes aesthetic cues from viral TikTok dancing videos. It’s ironic to the core but in a way that feels so god damn good.
“HAPPY HANUKKAH!! presenting our FIRST EVER holiday song: Christmas Wrapping 2020 (All I Want for Christmas is a Vaccine),” the band wrote in a tweet. “We hope this song helps you get through the holiday season.”
Check out Christmas Wrapping 2020 (All I Want for Christmas is a Vaccine) by Haim:
This year hasn’t been all misery for the Haim sisters. The band unleashed their superb third album Women in Music Pt. III this year. The record scored a nomination for Album of the Year at the 63rd Grammy Awards, whilst ‘The Steps’.
Este and Danielle Haim also lent their talents to ‘no body, no crime’, the excellent murder mystery cut off Taylor Swift’s latest surprise ep, evermore.
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In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Swift delved into the collaboration. “Working with the Haim sisters on ‘no body, no crime’ was pretty hilarious because it came about after I wrote a pretty dark murder mystery song and had named the character Este, because she’s the friend I have who would be stoked to be in a song like that,” Swift explained.
“I had finished the song and was nailing down some lyric details and texted her, ‘You’re not going to understand this text for a few days but… which chain restaurant do you like best?’ and I named a few…”She chose Olive Garden and a few days later I sent her the song and asked if they would sing on it. It was an immediate ‘YES.”
