© 2024 Boise State Public Radio
NPR in Idaho
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Apple's latest iOS (17.4) is preventing our livestreams from playing. We suggest you download the free Boise State Public Radio app & stream us there while we work to troubleshoot the issue.

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.

You make stories like this possible.

The biggest portion of Boise State Public Radio's funding comes from readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

Your donation today helps make our local reporting free for our entire community.