When writing I Was Born in Bethlehem, Nick Lowe imagined encountering Jesus in the seat next to him on an airplane and inquiring, “So, what do you do?” I Was Born in Bethlehem appears on Lowe’s forthcoming holiday album, Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family, out Oct. 29 on Yep Roc Records. It’s the kind of plainspoken retelling of the Nativity that Johnny Cash might have enjoyed, humanizing Jesus but never diminishing him. “I tried to make it very conversational and sort of matter of fact,” says Lowe, who wrote the Elvis Costello hit (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding and had one of his own with Cruel to Be Kind in 1979. Lowe has enjoyed a creative resurgence of late, particularly with 2011’s The Old Magic. When Lowe committed to making a holiday album, he decided he wanted it to be “sleigh bell-free zone.” [Source]
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