VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan didn't want her new "Wintersong" to be a "typical" Christmas album.
The set does include holiday standards such as "Silent Night" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas." But it also features covers of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)," Joni Mitchell's "River," Gordon Lightfoot's "Song For a Winter's Night" and "Christmas Time is Here" from "A Charlie Brown Christmas," the latter recorded with Diana Krall.
"I wanted to pick songs that reflected the season for me," said McLachlan, whose mother died from cancer a week before the holiday in 2002. "I feel an awful lot of nostalgia and melancholy around Christmas, so it brings up feelings of sadness and loss as well as joy. I wanted (the album) to evoke that sadness and contemplative nature."
