Ben Rector Is Thankful for Family and Good Food on His Latest Single 'The Thanksgiving Song'
It's almost the most wonderful time of the year and Ben Rector is getting into the holiday spirit a little early.
Ahead of the release of the 33-year-old singer-songwriter's upcoming Christmas album A Ben Rector Christmas on Nov. 13, the musician is sharing "The Thanksgiving Song" — the first single off of his holiday-themed album.
In a PEOPLE exclusive look at the track's visually unique lyric video, Rector croons about all of the warmhearted moments that come with the November holiday, including "watching football" and "watching families grow."
"Cause the older that I get I see / That life is short and bittersweet / Thank God for this Thanksgiving Day," the Oklahoma native croons on the chorus of the track.
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Collin Fatke
According to Rector, "The Thanksgiving Song" is the only original song on his upcoming LP and "the only Thanksgiving Song I know of, really."
"I wanted to give it a chance to get out into the world before the rest of the record, and hopefully give people a little more time to hear and enjoy it," he tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I also wanted to give Christmas music purists [like my wife Hillary] who want to save Christmas music until after Thanksgiving something to listen to and get in the holiday spirit."
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For Rector, who has three kids total — daughter Jane, 3, and twin boys Roy and Robert, 4 months — the holidays are an important time for them to bond and to create new traditions together.
"I'm excited for my family to start to make traditions of our own," he says. "Up until now we've been traveling back home to celebrate the holidays, but with the twins and Jane we'll be staying in Nashville, so it will be our first year to start to figure out how we'll celebrate. I'm also excited to watch Jane open presents."
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Ben Rector "The Thanksgiving Song"
Alongside the release of the track, Rector also revealed the whimsical lyric video for the song, which perfectly encapsulates all the warm feelings of the holiday as the tune's lyrics splash across various Thanksgiving scenes.
"My team and I all felt like the song was really special, and we knew we wanted to make a video for it," he says. "But between just my wife and I just having had twins, COVID, and the short timeframe we had to work with, the likelihood of pulling off an entire music video that would do the song justice felt super unlikely."
So a member of his team came up with the idea to create the fun lyric video, which Rector says that he and his crew are so happy they decided to do.
"I'm so pleased with how it turned out," he adds.
