Taylor Swift to Drop Christmas Song Tonight, Video Tomorrow

By Variety Staff

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Taylor Swift announced in a video on “Good Morning America” today that she is releasing a new Christmas song tonight, with a video to follow in the morning.

“Hey, I know this pretty wild, but I’ve just written a Christmas song. I feel like it’s weird to just, like, wait a year to put it out? I don’t have anyone to ask right now except for…” Swift said in the video clip before turning the camera onto her cat. “Meredith, should I put out a Christmas song, like, now? K, that’s hard to tell.”

Swift played up the cat angle to an almost ridiculous degree in a Twitter post announcing the song and including the clip. “When in doubt, ask the itty bitty pretty kitty committee. When they shun you with silence, ambivalence, and judgmental brush offs… just put the song out anyway. NEW XMAS SONG AND VIDEO (made from home videos) OUT TONIGHT #ChristmasTreeFarm

Show host Lara Spencer noted that Swift wrote the song this past weekend, “turning it around in record time,” and also said the music video is finished and will premiere “GMA” tomorrow.

Yesterday it was announced that Swift’s Netflix documentary “Miss Americana” is set to open the  Sundance Film Festival  next month, and Variety has been informed that all of the songs from her Big Machine catalog have been cleared for use in the film.

The documentary was a flashpoint in the latest public flare-up over  Scooter Braun ’s acquisition of Big Machine Label Group, and with it the rights to Swift’s first six albums: She claimed that Big Machine was blocking her from using songs from that catalog in the documentary.

But according to a source, Swift’s “songs have been cleared” and the clearances were granted within a timely manner — although that’s not to say there’s been any direct communication between the artist and the businessman.