electricland

Yoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling" evokes an idyllic Christmas card of the mind, a kind of universal Yule, and Gilmore's minimal arrangement lends it an air of weightless meditation.

"I didn't even know the song," Gilmore admits. "I was on tour with the Waterboys and I was talking to Mike Scott about covering his song 'December', and he said 'yes you can, that's great, but go and listen to this Yoko Ono song because it will really suit your voice'. So I listened to it and I loved it and I thought it was just beautiful. Everyone said 'you can't do a Yoko Ono song! What's the matter with you!' but it's gorgeous, and it comes at a point on the album where it really needed to draw breath and just stop. I think it really works as that."

Considering herself a cynical person eleven months of the year, Thea reserves the right to be 'squishy' in December and confesses that she makes a special effort to celebrate it and so why not celebrate it with a themed album and tour? "I love Christmas, I'm a real Christmas freak so it sort of made sense; I had a song that I really wanted to put on an album and so it just made sense to explore ideas and themes of winter and just enjoy my feelings about it as well."

The song in question was Midwinter Toast, which was inspired by a comment made by the radio presenter Janice Long who had said to Thea "I'm so fed up of playing the same old shit on the radio at this time of year; why doesn't anyone write Christmas songs anymore?" Rising to the challenge, Thea went on to write Midwinter Toast but at the time, had nowhere really to put it, therefore it was never actually recorded.