If I look at my music collection, even from the early days, I’m always struck by how much of it is what you would call ‘female singer-songwriter music,’ so it seemed a good idea to devote at least one of my Advent Calendar posts to them. One of these will probably be familiar to you – the artist, even if not the song – whereas the other is probably going to be new to most of you. I hope so, as one of the joys for me in doing this is sharing music I like to a new audience. Both of these have been in my selections for previous years, but I’m working on the assumption that no one will remember that!

My first song today is by one of the best singer-songwriters of the past 50+ years:

In case you didn’t know, that is a track from what I still think is the best album Joni Mitchell has ever made – Blue, which was released in 1971. This was Joni’s second successive top ten album here, reaching #3, and it got as far as #15 in the US and #9 in her native Canada. This is such a beautiful song, and that video of Snoopy and friends is a perfect fit for it: it brings something to my eye whenever I watch it.

As I said, I doubt that many of you will know of today’s second performer. A singer-songwriter in her own right, she has also made what I think is the best version of a seasonal favourite and, again, the video is a perfect fit:

Brynn Andre released an album and a few EPs between 2009 and 2012, but then went rather silent. She got married and developed a couple of freelance careers, as a copywriter and a life coach, which you can find under her married name of Brynn Johnson or the company name – Swandive –  if you are in need of either service! I had rather assumed that she had left the music business completely, but then she popped up in a collaboration in 2018 and dipped her own toe in the water again in 2019 with a single called Pools (see what I did there?). Her social media accounts have been equally quiet, though she did thank me on Facebook when I commented how much I enjoyed Pools, but I’m still hopeful that she may one day make a return to music. On her company website there’s a questionnaire to which she answers ‘If I could do one thing for the rest of my life….’ with ‘songwriting.’ Fingers crossed!

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s more relaxed choices. Leaving you for today, as always, with a little something to (I hope) make you smile:

See you tomorrow 🙂