Now that we’re headed into the Christmas season, it’s time to prepare for that festive staple: awkward family dinners. From dodging conversation with outspoken uncles to avoiding prods from your parents about how nice it would be to have some grandkids around, Kylie Fox has a solution. Her new single ‘Christmas Boyfriend’ invites you to use a human shield to deflect these challenges, so you can keep your holidays merry.
Right on the tails of her recent debut EP, BalconyEP, Saint John, N.B. singer-songwriter Kylie Fox has released ‘Christmas Boyfriend’, a quirky track advertising a wish to have a partner for the holiday season to bring to parties and impress your family. It is told with the energy and free-flowing lap steel of a classic country song, reminiscent of the likes of Dolly Parton.
Keeping with Fox’s cutting sense of humour, ‘Christmas Boyfriend’ acknowledges a common holiday conundrum. Not every year can be magical sleigh rides and trips to the tree farm. Some years it’s all you can do to manage the more modest hurdle of not having anything better to compete with your sibling’s newborn than your Christmas photoshoot with your cat; you didn’t think it was even supposed to be some kind of contest for your parent’s affection, and why can’t we just have a normal family dinner like everyone else?
While a freshly minted significant other might be a quick solution, Fox says that the song hasn’t always made the holidays less awkward for her. “Last Christmas I was seeing a guy and I played it at a show and everyone was elbowing him, but it wasn’t about him. It was just a coincidence because I wrote it the year before.”
Recorded by John McLaggen of Tomato/Tomato at Porch Light Studios in Grand Bay New Brunswick, the song features McLaggen on the guitar, Geoffrey Smith on percussion (Little You, Little Me, Tooth and the Fang), and Jon Estes on lap steel and stand up bass. ‘Christmas Boyfriend’ is presently available for digital download on Fox’s Bandcamp.