Happy October 13th! The universe has given you a fabulous gift today: it’s a Bob Dylan Christmas album!

by Taylor Berry

When you pop in Bob Dylan’s new Christmas CD Christmas in the Heart, the first thing you hear is sleigh bells, barbershop-esque crooning, and then Bob kicks in with the vocals to a raspy but nonetheless spirited “Here Comes Santa Claus”. Yeah, maybe it’s a little incongruent, but so is the notion of Bob Dylan singing all your favourite classic Christmas carols. You are getting exactly what you expect with this album, and it’s nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

Bob’s voice, never really his strength, sounds at age 68 like Tom Waits after a carton of unfiltered Pall Malls–in other words, real harsh. His singing is paired with smoother-than-smooth background vocals and arrangements of carols like “O Come All Ye Faithful” don’t stray far from Nat King Cole‘s classics. He’s definitely not trying to shake things up; it’s just a feel-good Christmas Bob-style–hoarse and sincere.

A lot of celebrities dabble in Christmas albums, and they’re usually a lot worse than this one. I, for one, was less than impressed with James Brown‘s Funky Christmas and while Sufjan Stevens‘ five-volume Songs For Christmas had some gems, for example, his version of “O Holy Night”, it also had a ton of filler that I just didn’t want to listen to. In contrast, you can let Bob’s Christmas in the Heart play all the way through and still appreciate the delicious irony of Bob Dylan crooning (croaking?) “O Little Town of Bethlehem” at the album’s close.

If you aren’t sold on the auditory delights of Christmas in the Heart, keep in mind that all royalties will be given in perpetuity to three different charities that support the hungry: Feeding America, Crisis, based in the UK, and the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

Bob’s Christmas in the Heart totally put me in the Christmas spirit, so don’t be an Ebenezer and check it out on iTunes.