Lindsey Stirling Breaks Down Her Christmas Album Snow Waltz Track by Track
The post Lindsey Stirling Breaks Down Her Christmas Album Snow Waltz Track by Track appeared first on Consequence.
Track by Track is our recurring feature series in which artists guide readers through each song on a release. Today, violinist Lindsey Stirling digs into her 2022 album, Snow Waltz.
Lindsey Stirling, violinist, songwriter, and dancer, loves the holiday season so much so that she wrote a song for fellow “Christmas fanatics” like her. The track, titled “Crazy for Christmas,” appears on her second Christmas album, Snow Waltz. Her 2022 project features a mix of re-imagined classics and original tunes, all primed for her signature mix of violin and electronic performances.
“We’re on our second tour with this music, and it still feels fresh,” she tells Consequence over Zoom.
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In celebration of a holiday season now in full swing, Lindsey joined Consequence to reflect on Snow Waltz and how these songs translate live. Plus, watch the new video for “Carol of the Bells” below, and read on for Lindsey’s track-by-track breakdown of her 2022 album, Snow Waltz.
“Sleigh Ride:”
“Sleigh Ride” has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs from the time I was a tiny kid. I love that it’s musical storytelling through instruments. The version I knew was the orchestral version; I didn’t even know there was a lyric version for years. You hear the horses footsteps through the percussion that they use, and it just brings it to life so visually through just the instrumentation and no words.
So I always loved it, and it was really fun to put a pop twist on it with instrumentals and little bits of orchestration. It was like a nice middle ground.
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“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen:”
I think that song is so fun because it’s one of the Christmas songs that’s in a minor key. It’s a little bit darker in tone, so it was fun to take it in a very aggressive approach with our production. As we were writing it and making the production, we were laughing because it was so over the top that we weren’t sure if it was going to work.
We pushed it so far, but then when we were done with it, it makes me smile and giggle every time I perform it or listen to it. It’s pretty aggressive, but quirky; almost like a circusy version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
“Crazy for Christmas” featuring Bonnie McKee:
Bonnie is one of the best writers in the business. She has written pop hits for everyone, and she’s a good friend of mine at this point, so it was really fun to write with her and just capture her a bit of her genius. We laughed so much on this song.
We were thinking about how there really isn’t a song that’s for the Christmas fanatic, who starts celebrating super early and all that. We were thinking about the stereotypes around the two of us, and others who are like that, and brainstorming that made for a really fun session.
“Feliz Navidad:”
I just felt like if I was going to do “Feliz Navidad,” I wanted to take it very in the traditional route. So I found a flamenco guitarist, Mark Ballas, who was my partner on Dancing with the Stars. He’s an amazing flamenco guitar player, and he was trained in Spanish-style guitar. I thought he would be perfect to put a Hispanic, traditional twist on a song that comes from that culture. It’s one of the most challenging ones to play on the album — it’s quite a burner for the hands as a guitarist and violinist.
“Joy to the World:”
I wrote this very dramatic intro, and we ended up splitting them into two tracks because I didn’t want to lose the intro. The experts tell me that for playlisting, it’s not good to have a super long intro to a track, but I also didn’t want to lose the dramatic intro that I really liked.
I love Celtic music, so I spun this one as Celtic as I could. I even got to film the music video in France, so it was really cool to bring it full circle. I even bought a few Celtic pieces off Etsy from people who live in that area. I just tried to make it as authentic as possible.
“Snow Waltz:”
“Snow Waltz” just felt so magical, and I loved calling the album that because I felt like it captured like the essence of the magic that I tried to put in all the songs.
For this song specifically, I took a lot of inspiration from Harry Potter. I feel like the series perfectly captures a Christmas feel; you can watch those movies any time at Christmas, but they’re also a little bit spooky and a little bit dark. I do think there is that that gray period between Halloween and Christmas when people are starting to feel festive, but it’s a little bit too early to put on full on Mariah Carey, so I wanted to make a song that could bridge that gap. In the music video, we’re dressed as skeletons, but we’re experiencing Christmas for the first time, and we’re all kind of confused by it. I wanted to put a little bit of a dark Halloween twist on Christmas.
“Christmas Time with You” featuring Frawley:
I didn’t write this song, which is rare for me, but this was one Frawley pitched to us. We did a rewrite on it to make room for the violin, but I really can’t take credit for how cute the song is.
“Little Drummer Boy:”
Well, “Little Drummer Boy,” in all honesty, has never been my favorite Christmas song. It’s usually a skip for me, so I took on the challenge of making a version of it that I really liked. I feel like with any version of “Little Drummer Boy,” the drums are the least interesting part of the song. If they wrote a song called “little violin girl,” I’d hope there would be some really run riffs in there that a violinist would love to play, so we left spaces for these big, epic drums. It’s about the drummer.
“O Come, O Come Emmanuel:”
It’s a classic. I remember when I was working with the producer on this one, I specifically started with the note of wanting it to sound almost like a movie trailer, like we were flying over Mordor, and it’s very dark and cinematic. So that’s where the inspiration came from, and that’s why the voice is kind of haunting. It’s one of the great minor keys of Christmas music, which is really fun to lean into. I took a really dramatic approach to that one.
“O Holy Night:”
I will say, I was really, really proud of my version of “O Holy Night.” There are so many arrangements out there of the song and I really think mine stands alone, because it’s traditionally all about the night of the Savior’s birth, but I myself am a Christian and I believe so strongly in the story of Christ, so I wanted to pour my faith into this song and write about his entire life. And so my version starts with his birth, and then the second verse follows through his life: doing miracles, the trials he faced, and then the big build of the atonement.
And the final chorus switches keys, and it’s supposed to be the resurrection. So I wanted it to take people through the whole emotional arc of following the Savior’s life, if they’re a believer. And I always say in my live show, if you’re not a believer, I just hope people can feel the amount of love that I poured into it, because that’s the only message that’s actually important when you’re sharing your faith — that it’s a story of acceptance and love.
“Magic” featuring David Archuleta:
I’ve known David for years, and it’s nice to collaborate with someone who’s a text message away. As I was writing the song, I immediately knew it was for him. It feels like Disney magic to me, and I love the sentiment that even through hardship, we can find joy. Through times of trial, we can find magic. I loved working with David on it.
“Deck the Halls:”
For this one, I tried to think of several songs I could mesh together, so it’s “Deck the Halls,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and “Silent Night.” They all weave in and out of each other. I feel like it’s the most creative arrangement on the album, and also, just being a bit of a music nerd, all those songs are written in 4/4 time, and I changed them to be 6/8 time. Whenever you’re taking these songs that have been done hundreds of times, it’s a bit of a challenge to be like, ‘How can I make it different?’ So changing the time signature was really fun.
“Ice Storm:”
It’s surprising to me that this is one of the fan favorites from the live show; I wasn’t quite expecting it, because there’s so many dance numbers and really high-energy choreography numbers, and “Ice Storm” is just me and my guitar player out there just rocking out. I was very inspired by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra — I grew up listening to them. It was kind of a fun, little homage to them.
Lindsey Stirling Breaks Down Her Christmas Album Snow Waltz Track by Track
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