The 26th was an experiment for the band to see how fast we could get a song from inception to release. In addition, prior to it, I swore that we’d never write a Christmas song. I gave in, on the premise that we made it a sad Christmas song.

What if Jingle Bells was sad?

How do you represent Christmas without the classic signifiers - Santa, candy canes, or Christmas stockings? I brainstormed more abstract ways to represent Christmas, settling eventually on the idea of exploding Christmas lights, to tie into the heartbreak theme of the song - the bright exploding lights juxtaposing with a dark background, reflected the sadness experienced during what should be a happy time of year.

I created the art digitally in Photoshop, drawing in colours and gradients, enhancing them and making the “lights” more chaotic using Adobe’s generative AI, finished with paper textures blended over the top to add some depth and modality to the image, enhancing the emotion.