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Amanda Shires wants out 'For Christmas'

Amanda Shires, performing during the Americana Awards at Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 22, 2021 in Nashville.
Terry Wyatt
/
Getty Images for Americana Music
Amanda Shires, performing during the Americana Awards at Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 22, 2021 in Nashville.

Amanda Shires' new album, For Christmas, makes it clear: she'd rather not be home for Christmas at all. "I think it would be a big lie or a sham to just walk through this Christmas stuff and think that everything's perfect," the Nashville-based fiddler, songwriter and singer tells Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep.

Especially the second Christmas of the pandemic. "This last year has been a different kind of hard, for sure." While her Christmas album is bleaker than the average holly-and-poinsettia fare – Shires' interpretation of "Silent Night" in particular – Shires finds hope settling near the horizon.


"Just goes to show there are happy times coming," she says. "When you get the bleak you get the opposite, too."

You can listen to the full broadcast version of this story in the audio player above.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

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