Sarah McLachlan on new Christmas album, her unusual pick for favourite song

HOLIDAYS

Sarah McLachlan on new Christmas album, her unusual pick for favourite song

David Friend The Canadian Press
Published Tuesday, December 6, 2016 8:22AM EST

Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan sings the national anthem at B.C. Place stadium in Vancouver, B.C., on Sept. 30, 2011. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

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No time of year gets Sarah McLachlan's heart pumping with anticipation quite like Christmas.

The angelic-voiced pop singer says she's a huge fan of the yuletide season, which is one reason why this year she recorded her second festive album, "Wonderland." Her first foray into holiday traditionals was 2006's hit "Wintersong."

"I love everything about Christmas," McLachlan professed in a recent interview. Then she started to count the ways it made her happy.

"The food, getting together with friends and family, the frenetic pace, the manic-ness of it."

Here are five things we learned about McLachlan's Christmas traditions:

IT'S ALL 麻豆传媒 THE SENSES: Ask McLachlan about Christmas and she's likely to bring up the sounds and smells of the season -- from a crackling fireplace to fresh spruce trees and the smell of warm gingerbread cookies. She evoked some of those mood-setters while recording both of her Christmas albums. "It's just a vibe. It's a feeling of warmth and nostalgia."

ONE CHRISTMAS ALBUM REIGNS SUPREME: Around the holidays, McLachlan says Harry Belafonte's 1958 Christmas album dominates her playlist. She puts "To Wish You a Merry Christmas," later re-released as "Belafonte's Christmas," on repeat every year to the dismay of her two daughters. "That's the only album we had at Christmas growing up," she says. "Every time I hear those songs I'm immediately childlike. It conjures up all these beautiful memories."

DOWNBEAT ISN'T OFF THE TABLE: Naming her favourite Christmas songs, McLachlan chooses "Mad World," the 1983 hit sung by Tears for Fears. Wait, what? A song about disillusionment with the rat race is suited for the yuletide season? "It doesn't conjure up images of Frosty the Snowman or happy thoughts," she admits. "I just think it's a great song." McLachlan isn't wrong in calling it a Christmas song. A cover of the track grabbed the coveted "Christmas Number One" position on the U.K. charts in 2003, holding off the Darkness' more obvious choice "Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)."

SHE FONDLY RECALLS HER BARENAKED LADIES COLLAB: Twenty years after singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings" with the Barenaked Ladies, it's become a cult favourite of sorts, landing on the cheeky pop band's album "Barenaked for the Holidays" and a number of other compilations. The impromptu performance happened at a music festival staged by U.S radio station WPLT in December 1996. "It was just somebody with a handheld mic backstage," she remembers. "We all just sang into that one mic and that was it."

BEING THANKFUL IS IMPORTANT: McLachlan says she tries to keep her daughters -- who are nine and 14 years old -- grounded despite their comfortable upbringing. "We talk a lot about gratitude and privilege," she says. "They're children of wealth. First world problems." The singer emphasizes how fortunate they are to possess even the most basic necessities of life. That approach has kept McLachlan from taking things for granted herself. "Even a simple thing like walking down the beach," she says. "(I say,) 'I'm so grateful for this moment. I have you by my side, you're my gorgeous kids.' And they're like, 'Oh my god, here she goes again."'