Julia Jacklin Drops Melancholic ‘Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now’

Julia Jacklin delivers Christmas sadness with the new track “Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now.”

Directed by Jacklin and her frequent collaborator Nick Mckk, the clip features the songwriter in an elegant Christmas gown, complete with red sequins and a white muff. “Watch me to go bed alone this year,” she sings. “There was someone I wanted, but they’re no longer here.”

“2019 was a pretty rough one for my family,” Jacklin said in a statement. “I was touring the whole year carrying a lot of guilt for not being able to be at home. Singing super sad songs every night was a blessing and a curse depending on the day. I was imagining Christmas as being this time where we all came together again and took a collective breath but then the bushfires hit and my family live in the country so it was a direct threat.”

“I was living in Melbourne, still pretty new to it, and wasn’t able to go home; the roads were blocked and my family was being evacuated periodically for a month,” she continued. “At one point, Melbourne was blanketed in smoke from the fires, the sun was this menacing red, it felt apocalyptic and pretty hopeless. I wrote this in my room looking forward to 2020, hoping it would be a reset of some kind lol.”

“Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now” follows the Sub Pop singles “To Perth, Before the Border Closes,” and the excellent B-side “Cry.” She released her second LP, Crushing, last year.