Even a week after taking the stage at The House of Blues for the 2019 Boston Music Awards, Hawthorn still aren’t done making the city swoon. Swapping overt jolliness for a more subdued emotional tug on listeners’ heartstrings, the Boston group has shared a cover of Joni Mitchell’s tune “River” for the holidays, out today (December 20).
“The holidays aren’t always an easy time of year, and ‘River’ is this devastatingly beautiful song about heartache at a time when you’re already feeling a lot,” the band shares with Vanyaland. “We love that Joni got so real when so much Christmas music is pushing a kind of forced joy, and we wanted to preserve that rawness in our own recording of the song.”
Hawthorn, of course, rise to the delicate occasion, tending to the tune with their familial kind of musical softheartedness. Lend an ear below.