The Wombats have pitched in another triple j ‘Like a Version‘ – this year turning up with an especially festive flavour, taking on Bing Crosby‘s ‘White Christmas‘.
[jwplayer Vijj4Our]
I am feeling a LOT of Christmas cheer right now, despite Matthew Murphy‘s very morose look throughout. That tinsel around his neck? Makes him feel more like Bright Eyes singing ‘Blue Christmas‘ than like Michael Bublé.
It’s a subdued, classy take on the classic, featuring all the trimmings: trumpets, strings and plenty of jingle bells. While the track’s no Aussie Xmas anthem a la ‘White Wine in the Sun‘, I guess when you’re over here playing a December/NYE festival every other year you probably do dream about a white Christmas.
In the tinsel-heavy clip, Dan Haggis is wearing a Santa hat, red-nosed bass/keys Tord Øverland Knudsen is impressively, casually playing cello, and they all seem to barely notice how Murphy is being mauled by a man in a wombat costume.
Okay, fine, it’s more of a gentle massage, but I just feel like a giant Christmasy wombat coming up behind me would be vaguely threatening, especially when I’m just trying to croon a classic song.
It’s not the first time the Brits have taken on the ‘Like a Version’ challenge: they covered Jarryd James‘ ‘Do You Remember‘ in 2015, Jessie J‘s ‘Price Tag‘ in 2011, and The La’s‘ ‘There She Goes‘ in 2008.
Today, The Wombats also dropped their new video clip for Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life bonus track/beachside summer anthem ‘Oceans‘, which features Murphy treading water, white outline cartoons, and the psych graphics Windows Media Player used in the ’00s. Noice.
