The holiday season is well underway, and Florence Welch is celebrating by lending her voice to a Christmas classic. As part of The Stars Come Out to Sing for Christmas, an annual charity event by Nordoff-Robbins, the Florence and the Machine singer shared a gorgeous cover of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, which you can hear below.
For her rendition, Welch stayed true to the original, singing gently over a bare piano melody that’s slightly faster than Judy Garland’s 1944 version. Of course, the power in her cover comes from her extraordinary vocal range. Instead of flaunting her skills, Welch takes a subtle approach, singing the iconic falsettos with graceful dexterity and charming casualness.
Thankfully, Welch’s performance was captured live in a beautiful video that sets the scene, too. After being introduced by a very complimentary Nile Rodgers, Welch can be seen standing between the golden curtains of a private opera box in a theater. From that fairytale view, she calmly belts out the Christmas staple, soaring from note to note with ease like the Grammy-nominated vocalist that she is.
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Welch is the latest musician to bust out a seasonal classic to celebrate the holidays. Earlier this month, James Blake performed a traditional choral number, U.S. Girls wrote their own ode to Santa, and Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin have been churning out Jewish covers for their nightly Hanukkah sessions. Even Alanis Morissette joined in on the fun by covering John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s classic “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” on live TV.
