"drink about it (merry christmas baby)" by YNES

Well I had assumed (a dangerous trick) that Sunday's gig (the 2025 Izzie Derry Christmas Show at the Priory Visitor Centre with added Banoffee) would be my final one of 2025 on which to report and I hadn't any awareness of upcoming releases in what's left of the year either.

Then up pops YNES with "drink about it (merry christmas baby)" (yes she's embracing the culture war assault on the upper case which I've noted repeatedly in 2025).

Should I have been surprised: well that's a vital strand in her DNA isn't it? Equally part of the YNES genome is her penchant for diving into the sort of subject matter which the mainstream swerves & which makes mainstream media & listeners downright uncomfortable. So it's good she is on the case I feel.

There may be an YNES song in her catalogue which can't be filed under "intensely personal" but I can't off hand think of one. This certainly can be regarded that way.

Of course the actual & creative lives of YNES cannot be untangled nor do I see why they should: it makes for emotionally true material & it's why she is so respected. It can't be easy living the life which inspires her work & as someone who wears her heart so boldly on her sleeve & is frank about her struggles, I hope catharsis applies.

If you're a fan (why would you not be?) you've presumably followed both her external geographical (transatlantic) odyssey and her corresponding internal one over the past few years.

Apart from a live & acoustic version of her ‘Born Loser' EP from the year before last, this is her first release in the three years since the studio format came out.

The intervening years have (in part at least) been spent addressing her drinking (which seems a sustained success) and unsurprisingly, "drink about it" concerns this achievement. Self identifying now as "alt-punk, ex-drunk", YNES  "wrote this one for my younger self and all my homies who find the holidays to be a time of tension and sometimes trauma?"

At her most confessional & raw, YNES tends to go for incredibly bleak & skeletal songs based around her guitar playing. Surprisingly, perhaps, she goes against this here with, what for her is a comparatively lush arrangement based around layers of synth & vocals which are rather soothing in tone though supporting lyrics which address the negative part alcohol plays in Christmases: so a good tension there.

Four years ago she put out a Christmas single: "It's Christmas (I Miss Ya)" which to be fair also deployed a relatively jolly backing too. However this definitely dated from her drinking years and it's interesting to note the journey she's been on between the two songs: "drink about it" certainly addresses bigger picture issues.

After a creative hiatus, YNES seems to be back writing & recording again ("drink about it" is wholly her writing, performing & producing) which is very much something I've been hoping for. So I look forwards to many more surprises in the months ahead, though to balance that, YNES is also in a crusading mode: targeting the music industry & streaming and championing working class creatives: check out her own "Fair Play" magazine (available like this single via Bandcamp). Consequently, since I'm sure this takes up a fair amount of her time, I imagine finding moments for music needs a sense of balance.