Every year for the past decade, The Polyphonic Spree has celebrated the holidays with a special "extravaganza" in Dallas, featuring dancing, DJs and, of course, the band performing seasonal songs. This year, The Polyphonic Spree celebrates the 10th anniversary of that extravaganza with a live tour of the show, as well as a new CD called Holidaydream. The group also has this beautiful new video for one of the album's standout tracks: John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)."
Animator Gala Bent provided the hypnotic watercolor images for the video. The paintings are intermittently lovely and dark, which Bent says reflects hope in times of darkness. "As someone who has not experienced war firsthand, I have only eyewitness accounts to convince me that it is a dreadful and perplexing quagmire. From the same eyewitness accounts, I also know that threads of hope and mercy are strung even in the midst of terrible circumstances."
In an email, Polyphonic Spree frontman Tim DeLaughter tells us that Lennon's song speaks to him on many levels. "I remember hearing it as a kid, but it really resonated with me after John's passing. It's a protest song that has taken on a whole other life as a holiday song. It always seems we're in some sort of conflict. We chose to do this song as a message of hope as we ask ourselves if we are capable, as a race, to find solutions and stop the hate."
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