Watch Lizzo cover Stevie Wonder on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Lizzo stepped up as a last-minute replacement on this past week’s episode of Saturday Night Live. The musical guest for the final show of the year, which was hosted by Elvis leading man Austin Butler and featured Cecily Strong’s final appearance as a cast member, was originally supposed to be New York’s own Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Guitarist Nick Zinner is battling pneumonia, so in their place, Lizzo stepped in to close out 2023 at Studio 8H.
The ‘Good as Hell’ singer was no stranger to Rockefeller Center. She first appeared as a musical guest back in 2019 when Eddie Murphy made his triumphant return to the programme. After that, she stepped into elite company by pulling double duty as host and musical guest earlier this year. Obviously, the SNL crew love having Lizzo around, so when a new musical guest was needed ASAP, it was no surprise that Lizzo was the one to fill in.
For her first performance, Lizzo pulled out ‘Break Up Twice’, a stand-out track that was featured on her most recent album, Special. Lizzo also got in on the sketch action by appearing in the Please Don’t Destroy pre-taped skit ‘Plirts’. When it came time for a second song, Lizzo picked a surprising choice: a cover of Stevie Wonder’s iconic holiday song, ‘Someday at Christmas’.
Holiday songs are an occasional tradition in the halls of SNL. Miley Cyrus covered John Lennon’s ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over)’ in 2018, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney played ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town’ in 2015, and the Foo Fighters performed a full medley of holiday songs in 2017 (Dave Grohl is usually more of a Hannukah guy). Lizzo even had her own precedent for the yuletide cheer, remixing ‘Good as Hell’ to include some Christmas music during her first appearance on the show.
This time around, the singer opted to go with Wonder’s Xmas classic. Originally appearing on Wonder’s 1967 holiday album of the same name, ‘Someday at Christmas’ came to greater prominence when The Jackson 5 covered the song on their 1970 Christmas album Jackson 5 Christmas Album. With its inclusion on the legendary compilation LP A Motown Christmas, ‘Someday at Christmas’ quickly became an all-time modern holiday song.
Check out Lizzo’s rendition of ‘Someday at Christmas’ down below.
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