Singer-songwriter Elizabeth Chan set yet one more benchmark within the annals of vacation music by issuing her 14th straight annual Christmas launch, “Shatterproof,” this month. No one is more likely to come near shattering that report for the very best variety of consecutive seasonal albums or EPs, however Chan — who is thought for having a declare on the “queen of Christmas” title — handled loads of occasions previously yr that put some cracks in her largely cheerful vacation façade.
Most impactfully, she was present process grief over the dying of an in depth buddy, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me”), this previous spring, in addition to her grandmother final December. Chan was additionally nonetheless coping with a extreme spinal harm and a particular wants courtroom. And as just lately as final week, she was again in courtroom. No, not with any continuation of her headline-making authorized battle over Mariah Carey’s unsuccessful try and trademark the “queen” moniker, however one other lawsuit that has made the New York City information — a go well with geared toward ending New York City’s try and impose congestion pricing on guests to Manhattan, with rerouted site visitors she believes would have an effect on the well being of youngsters in her neighborhood.
‘Tis the season to make carefree Christmas information, proper?
The “Shatterproof” EP isn’t practically as heavy as all these circumstances would possibly make it sound. In truth, one of many 5 songs is a belated industrial launch of her novel model of “Jingle Bells,” set to the tune and magnificence of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” one thing she solely ever put out as a music video 9 years in the past. The self-professed Swiftie’s homage is one thing that dates again to a lighter-hearted period. But every part on the EP has some connection, nonetheless tangential, to the grief she fought to get previous this yr.
“I have the benefit and the honor to share where I am through my albums,” Chan says, “and I think ‘Shatterproof’ was definitely the absolute perfect way to describe so many things that I’ve experienced. I’m always ruminating on Christmasy words and phrases, and during the season there’s always a focus on the word shatterproof, right? And for me, actually it was a year ago today that I found out my grandmother passed away, when I was actually on a live interview in New Zealand. And then unexpectedly losing Morgan Spurlock, who I know was a controversial figure… I wished my heart was shatterproof, and it was definitely the context in which I approached all my music this year.”
Chan has a little bit of hesitancy in speaking about Spurlock, who just about withdrew from the movie enterprise and public life typically in 2017 after releasing a publicly unprompted assertion admitting that he had been responsible of sexual misconduct previously. Chan says she solely ever noticed an honorable aspect of the director, who helped begin her out on the trail to perennially making Christmas music by casting her on his documentary present “The Failure Club” and giving her a tough deadline to start pursuing her vacation songwriting dream. She says he encourated her to not publicly point out their friendship, lest she be tarred by affiliation with the controversy… after which he died of most cancers this previous May, leaving younger kids across the age of Chan’s personal.
“He’s recognized to many as this one individual, however for me, I wouldn’t even be sitting the place I’m at present if he didn’t have this astounding perception in me as a Christmas artist. He noticed this earlier than I even may see myself, and also you and in and in each trade, you at all times want that one mentor otherwise you simply want that one individual to imagine in you that will help you carry by way of your days. And that is the primary Christmas the place I’m not joking round with him about it.
“When he was going through his worst times in his career, I gave him a safe space to focus on the things that he looked towards, which was being a father to sons,” says Chan. “And that’s how we connected further. Obviously I met him when he was in his heyday of being this Oscar-nominated documentary director, in the beginning of my career when I had no Christmas music. And when his career had this tremendous implosion, I gave him a safe space to kind of think about Christmas and family and home, and we reconnected. He reemerged a different person, but he was always my friend. And it’s hard because the dichotomy of how people experience relationships and stuff is complicated, and I never could understand why he said he was ‘part of the problem’” in his apologetic assertion, although she needed to settle for every part he mentioned.
So one of many songs on the EP that has a Spurlock connection, in her thoughts, is “The Thanksgiving Song.” That’s the tune she wrote to fulfill the problem within the docu-series again in 2011.
“Our group, which was called the Failure Club, was a group of seven strangers who got together to try to achieve our own life’s goals. So he gave me a deadline of one week to learn how to play guitar and share my first Christmas song in the next meeting. And it was all real. This was not made up. But I was too afraid to mess up a Christmas song. So I was like, what’s the next closest holiday I could approach? And so it was a Thanksgiving song. It’s wild because it was all documented.”
The music that opens the EP, “A (Metal) Christmas Song,” is a (sure) metal-flavored model of a music she beforehand recorded. (She tried to get Metallica’s consideration, to report the tune along with her, and had no luck with that, however discovered her solution to an appropriate association anyway.)
“When Morgan passed away, I asked his family what his favorite Christmas song was, and his brother said, ‘Oh, it was your song’ — ‘A Christmas Song.’ So I did a metal version for him. And I said, ‘Besides my song, what is the song that your mom would always play for you, growing up?’ And they said it was ‘Mary, Did You Know?’ So I listened to the song through the lens of a mother who just lost her son, and I saw it in a different light, , and I sang my heart out on that song. Every nanosecond in the studio, I just poured out all of my grief and all of my wonder about being a mom and giving birth to children and wondering what their legacy would be.”
Chan provides, “This album’s actually a present to his household and a commemoration of our friendship. It’s arduous for me to imagine that he’s gone, to be trustworthy. It’s a really completely different time to have Christmas proceed with out the individuals that you simply love. I imply, that is one thing I at all times discuss and I write about. But once I expertise it, it doesn’t make it simpler.
“Also I try to also be grateful for the blessings that I do have. So I did a song with my daughters again, with my 3-year-old finally mustering up the courage to sing in the microphone. Every year on my album, you get to hear my daughters grow up, and it’s astounding how you can hear how their enunciations and their singing changes, and that becomes a new tradition for me too. So even though there’s loss, there’s also so much to experience and enjoy and gain in the bittersweetness of the season.”
As for the far-from-bitter Swift tribute, “We’re Swifties in my household,” Chan says, “and that’s definitely my favorite song. I did this homage during Halloween a few years ago where I just completely recreated the ‘Shake It Off’ music video, Christmas-style, with even a nativity scene. I’ve never released that song before and I’m like, if I don’t release it this year, the year of Taylor Swift, when would I? So I thought it was well-curated to throw it into the mix.”
Chan has signed to do a characteristic movie documentary about her life and profession, although she’s ready until 2025 to disclose particulars.
“It’s based on 14 years of archival footage that I have collected since the very beginning, which was something that Morgan told me to do. We were always gonna do something together. It’s like when I had this idea of like doing like a flash mob in Times Square [for the original “A Christmas Song” video], however I had no cash and I had no approach of doing it, and Morgan was like, ‘Oh, who cares? Just do it. People record stuff in Times Square all the time.’ He was pushing me over the sting to do issues that had been identical to so crazily unimaginable. He had a very stunning mind-set about individuals, and I believe that that may by no means be recognized. He actually believed in desires and dreamers, and I really feel like that that must be extra of his legacy.”
Recalling these early days of professionally realizing her Christmas music mania, she says, “It takes a certain time in your life to be like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna shut down Times Square. Yeah, I’m gonna do Christmas music. Yeah, I’m gonna walk out of my old job. In that music video, I’m literally walking out of my old job at Conde Nast on the same block. I quit my job to write Christmas music and I exited the door for the last time on that exact block and basically entered the Christmas music space. That was my entrée.”
Of Spurlock, she provides, “he filmed with me and then he went to film with One Direction [directing the group’s concert movie], and I would joke with him, ‘Oh, well, I was your starter musician.’”
She additionally credit Spurlock with encouraging her in her authorized battle with Carey. After the pop famous person utilized for a collection of “Queen of Christmas” logos, Chan went into battle to cease that — to not declare them for herself, she says, however to depart them open for anybody who wished to make use of them, whether or not it’s her or Brenda Lee or Darlene Love or simply somebody who desires to make “Queen of Christmas” Etsy gear. Chan’s aspect lastly prevailed when Carey’s attorneys seemingly deserted the trademark try and it was dismissed by a decide.
“During the Mariah stuff, which was really, really hard, I owe him because there were days where I didn’t think I could move forward because there were so many roadblocks at that time. But I always saw him as in the boxing ring with me as my coach— like ‘Get back up and keep fighting.’ I’d be in the gutter and he’d be like, ‘Fantastic. What are we gonna do today?’ I will forever be thankful because he really believed in me as the Queen of Christmas when I didn’t even see it sometimes. When the New Yorker profile came out (in 2018, with a headline proclaiming her the Queen of Christmas), he was the first person to call me and say, ‘It’s your moment.’”
Of her present authorized battle, Chan says, “Last yr round Thanksgiving, I filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Department of Transportation and the MTA. The motive is there may be this factor known as congestion pricing that’s gonna occur in New York City the place they’re going to start out charging guests to return into decrease Manhattan, beneath sixtieth avenue, a toll. It was initially $15, however now it’s $9. For me, it wasn’t about being anti-congestion pricing. Clearly if you reside in an enormous metropolis, site visitors sucks and everybody hates it. But the issue right here is that I reside in an space in decrease Manhattan the place all the site visitors shall be directed, the place in case you set your GPS to no tolls, you’re gonna find yourself in my neighborhood.
“And my daughter is special needs and has a seizure disorder, so whenever she’s sick and has a seizure, she has to be in the hospital within 15 minutes. I said to my local politicians, ‘Hey, I understand that this congestion plan is going through, but when I was reading the plan, it said that there’s gonna be more congestion in certain areas — and these areas are going cause asthma and cancer- and respiratory-related diseases to children and residents. Are you sure that’s a good idea? But more importantly, how would my child get ambulances in and out of our neighborhood if it’s going to be bumper to bumper traffic every day? And no one could give me a good answer.”
Last December was a bummer Christmas for Chan as a result of the positioning The Gothamist broke the information about her lawsuit on Dec. 25, and “my telephone didn’t cease ringing off the. I used to be so mad as a result of I actually wished to be with my children and Christmas is absolutely nonetheless very sacred to me. And they made it a joke about my litigation chops with the Queen of Christmas trademark. But it’s not a joke.
“And look at it now. It’s the second time that I’ve helped people. I’m not getting anything in return; I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. You want to do things that will try to mitigate hurt for people, you know? I didn’t want to sue about the Queen of Christmas either. I’m glad I did, though.”
She provides, “I’m not a lawyer. I’m like Erin Brockovich.” Or Brockovich meets Der Bingle.