"Loneliest Time of Year" is a
Christmas song
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...
by English singer
Mabel
Mabel is an English female given name derived from the Latin ''amabilis'', "lovable, dear".Reclams Namensbuch, 1987,
History
Amabilis of Riom (died 475) was a French male saint who logically would have assumed the name Amabilis upon entering th ...
, released by
Polydor Records on 22 November 2019. It was written by Mabel,
MNEK,
Tre Jean-Marie, Nayla Nyassa and
Camille Purcell, and produced by Sillkey and Tre Jean-Marie.
Release
Mabel first teased "Loneliest Time of Year" on
Twitter on 19 November 2019 by posting the lyrics, "Doesn't matter if I manage to get all the things on my list". She shared its accompanying
cover art
Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game (box art), music album (album art), ...
on social media and a short snippet of the song on
TikTok the following day. The cover art is a polaroid of the singer wearing a plaid winter coat and
Supreme winter hat in front of a snow backdrop. Upon the single's release on 22 November 2019, Mabel wrote, "Important to remember that what can be the best time of year for some can be the loneliest time of year for someone else so be kind and take care of each other this Christmas."
One year later, Mabel announced on 18 November 2020 via social media that she was going to re-release the song along with a cover of the song
I'll Be Home for Christmas on 20 November 2020.
Critical reception
In his review for ''
Idolator
An idolator is a practitioner of idolatry.
Idolater or Idolator may also refer to: Books
*''Os Idólatras'', 1968 Portuguese novel by Maria Judite de Carvalho Music
* Idolator (website), an American music blog
* ''Idolator'' (album), third album ...
'', Mike Wass called it a "wonderfully miserable" and "refreshingly realistic Christmas song".
Track listing
*Digital download (2019)
#"Loneliest Time of Year" – 3:22
*Digital download (2020)
#"Loneliest Time of Year" – 3:22
#"
I'll Be Home for Christmas" – 3:15
Personnel
* Mabel – vocals
* Sillkey – production, drums, keyboards, piano, bass, synthesizer
*
Tre Jean-Marie – production, drums, engineering, guitar, keyboards, strings, synthesizer, programming, background vocals
*
MNEK – vocal production
* Matt Zara – guitar
*
Phil Tan – mixing
* Stuart Hawkes – mastering
Credits adapted from
Qobuz.
Charts
References
External links
*
{{authority control
2019 singles
2019 songs
British Christmas songs
Mabel (singer) songs
Polydor Records singles
Songs written by Kamille (musician)
Songs written by Mabel (singer)
Songs written by MNEK
Songs written by Tre Jean-Marie