Ben Folds Welcomes Holiday Season With First Christmas Album Release

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Ben Folds. Photo: Shervin Lainez

Ben Folds has released his first-ever Christmas album, Sleigher, via New West Records.

The 10-track collection includes seven original songs, such as “We Could Have This (feat. Lindsey Kraft),” as well as renditions of Mel Torme and Robert Wells’ “The Christmas Song,” Burt Bacharach’s “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle” and The Mills Brothers’ “You Don’t Have To Be A Santa Claus.” Produced by Folds and recorded by Joe Costa in Nashville and Los Angeles, Sleigher aims to examine the passage of time through the lens of Christmas, reflecting on memory, loss and longing, while exploring the ways in which the holiday season marks chapters of our lives.

“Christmas is constant,” says Folds. “Allowing you to take stock of what’s different, to understand who you are and all the ways you’ve grown and changed.”

He continues, “There’s something about Christmas that really pushes you to ask, ‘Who am I now? How did I get here?’ You can look back on Christmases from your childhood and see the progression, or you can zoom out and look back at Christmas songs from the ‘30s and ‘40s and ‘50s and see we’ve evolved socially and culturally. Having that consistent framework is really illuminating. I love those holiday classics that are totally broad and timeless, but I’ve only ever been able to be myself, and I realized the most generous thing I could do with this album was write the best songs I could, no matter where that took me. Anything else just wouldn’t ring true.”

Folds is currently on his “Paper Airplane Request Tour.” During each performance, the audience is encouraged to send song requests to the stage via paper airplanes. He will stop in Brooklyn, New York tomorrow (Nov. 12), before making his way to Morristown, New Jersey on Wednesday (Nov. 13) and York, Pennsylvania on Friday (Nov. 15).

Sleigher Track Listing:
1. “Little Drummer Bolero”
2. “Sleepwalking Through Christmas”
3. “Me and Maurice”
4. “Christmas Time Rhyme”
5. “Waiting for Snow”
6. “We Could Have This (feat. Lindsey Kraft)”
7. “The Christmas Song”
8. “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle”
9. “Xmas Aye Eye”
10. “You Don’t Have To Be A Santa Claus”

Liza Anderson
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