If you see a sharp dressed man dancing alone in the woods this Christmas, don’t be alarmed.
That’s just Abe Drennan, letting his holiday cheer fly in his new music video, Light of the Season.
“It was so much fun,” he said. “I raided the drama room at the high school, just went out and had some laughs and got to dance on a lake.
“It wasn’t so bad. When we got to shooting it was only -14 C, so it was manageable. It just worked out so well, I was so thrilled with it all.”
Hitting cyberspace on winter solstice, the video accompanies the recording of the song which was released Dec. 17 — Drennan’s birthday.
While the song is only now coming to light, Drennan actually wrote it six years ago, for the 2016 Christmas Coffee House.
“At first I had my doubts, but my birthday’s this time of year so I figured why not try to make it on my birthday,” he said. “We worked pretty diligent from the end of November to early December to get everything together. Andrew Shedden at Bell Rock and David Stewart produced and shot the video.
“I took it out of the file and things came together.
Taking the original song and reworking it, Drennan reached out to Bell Rock Recording in Fort Smith.
After assembling a crack team of Joey Roy on drums, Ryley Blake on bass, Marie Villebrun MacDonald on backing vocals and Juno award winner Jim Black on guitar, the song had the professional quality it needed for Drennan’s taste. But it still needed that holiday chime.
Ultimately, the solution was obvious.
“Bells,” he laughed. “So we did that. Jim Black is incredible — he took the song with his chiming guitar riff to add a Christmas feel to it. Then we added the background vocals — put all these little elements together and we have a Christmas song. It’s great.”
After three long years of the pandemic and the restrictions that went with it, Drennan said the project gave him a chance to cut loose.
Much of the focus of the tune is letting go and allowing life to just be.
“I needed to give myself permission to just have some fun and take it easy,” he said. “We need a little more light in this world and the chaos we’re living in, so I needed to give myself permission to slow down and not make everything perfect.
“So that is the message of the song.”
With a holiday single under the tree, Drennan is back to work on his upcoming E.P. He expects to have another single and video out somewhere around February, then onward to releasing the full album by April to May.
He expressed his thanks to the team who helped him with the song and wished all a happy holiday.
Watch Light of the Season: