News : Taylor Momsen Says She Turned Down A How The Grinch Stole Christmas Song For Years

Taylor Momsen once believed she would never record the song she first performed in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Each holiday season, the The Pretty Reckless singer says fans regularly reach out asking her to rework Where Are You Christmas?, which she originally sang while playing Cindy Lou Who in the 2000 festive favourite.

“That was something that started when I formed The Pretty Reckless at 14. Every year people would connect the dots and realise I was Cindy Lou Who in The Grinch. As time went on it just kept growing, and it always felt like one of those things you smile at and think, ‘That’s sweet,’” she explained on the Call Her Daddy podcast. “Then every year someone would say, ‘You should do a rock version of Where Are You Christmas?’ And for maybe 15 years my answer was always, ‘Absolutely not. There’s no universe where I’d ever do that.’”

After years of turning the idea down, Momsen eventually softened during the Covid lockdown in 2020 and decided to give it a try with her bandmates.

“So we started working on an arrangement, which was actually quite difficult because the song is barely a minute long and doesn’t really function as a full track,” the 32 year old said. “We went into the rehearsal room and played it once, and honestly, by the time it ended, four very gloomy people were suddenly smiling from ear to ear. We looked at each other and thought, ‘Was that amazing? Something special just happened. Are we actually doing this?’”

Still, the former Gossip Girl star did not want to release Where Are You Christmas? by itself and felt the track needed more meaning around it. As a result, she wrote five additional rock leaning holiday songs and turned the project into an EP titled Taylor Momsen's Pretty Reckless Christmas, which is available now.