Hear Kinsley’s ‘Holiday Honky Tonk’ Ahead of New Christmas Cover
The original song turns a Christmas homecoming into a plan to avoid an old sweetheart.
Kinsley has released “Holiday Honky Tonk,” an original Christmas song built around a narrator avoiding a hometown sweetheart during the holidays. She will follow it on November 13 with a studio version of “Mary, Did You Know?,” a song she previously performed for her YouTube series Midnight Sessions.
The idea for “Holiday Honky Tonk” grew from a reversal of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Kinsley and her co-writers imagined the former sweetheart returning home while the narrator hides out in a honky tonk to avoid running into him. “We started thinking about ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ and wondered, ‘What if we had that backwards? What if he’s the one coming home for Christmas, and I’m the one hiding out in a honky tonk trying not to run into him?’” Kinsley said.
Kinsley wrote the song with Seth Mosely, RuthAnne Cunningham and Allison Veltz-Cruz. Its premise pairs holiday imagery and an upbeat, playful feel with a narrator reluctant to celebrate: instead of welcoming a reunion, she plans to dance, drink and spend the holiday trying to move on. The song was written in April, which Kinsley said added to the fun of leaning into its deliberately corny premise. She described it as a chance to let loose alongside music that tends toward more serious subjects.
Kinsley’s version of “Mary, Did You Know?” follows a performance she posted to Midnight Sessions last year. The positive response led her to record a studio version for listeners this holiday season. Both songs arrive after the September 25 release of her debut EP, Learn To Live, on MCA.
