Last night, Miley Cyrus released a cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band’s 1971 single “Happy Xmas (The War Is Over.)” The cover is a collaboration with producer Mark Ronson, with whom Cyrus is allegedly working on a new album, and Lennon and Ono’s son Sean Ono Lennon. Last evening, she announced on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that she would be releasing the single at midnight. Previously, during an interview with Howard Stern on Wednesday, Cyrus revealed that she would be performing the song during her Saturday Night Live appearance with Ronson this coming Saturday, and recording a studio version of it with Sean Lennon that day.
Now something of a Christmas standard, but originally intended in large part as a Vietnam protest song, Cyrus told Howard Stern on Wednesday that she believed the message of the song felt enormously relevant today to her. “This song… is so true to where we are right now and these lyrics of ‘What have we done? Are we doing enough, are we actually active?'” she explained. “All we do is complain and we don’t actually get out there and do enough in our communities. I think it’s so timely for right now.”
Miley and Mark Ronson released their first collaborative single, “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart,” at the end of last month. Listen to Cyrus’ sleek, millennial take on “Happy Xmas (The War Is Over)” below.
https://open.spotify.com/embed?uri=spotify%3Aalbum%3A3jy7BUlxTsFNPVZGvawAD0
