Dyan’s new single Holiday for a Baby Born Peacefully captures the quiet gravity that runs beneath Alexis Dyan Marsh’s work as both songwriter and film composer. Known for scoring series and films while writing lyrics when directors needed something more intimate, Marsh returns under her Dyan moniker with a track that feels reflective and deeply rooted in memory.
The song unfolds like a room lit at the edges. Juniper, poisonous holly, a stovetop glow, a quiet house. Marsh arranges these details with the precision of someone accustomed to shaping emotion through image, but here the frame is looser and warmer. Her voice moves gently around the uncertainty at the heart of the piece: “What to make of it, clearly / No answers embrace us completely.” Instead of reaching for a resolution, she allows the questions to resonate.
Written between Los Angeles and Cincinnati before settling in the Midwest, much of Marsh’s recent work has carried the imprint of transition. That sense of movement is present in the song’s refrain, where memories appear without clear origins, drifting in and out of focus. Still, the track holds steady in its tenderness, grounding itself in ritual, family and the small, meaningful textures of winter.
The cinematic instinct in Marsh’s scoring work remains, but it shows up differently here. Holiday for a Baby Born Peacefully isn’t dramatic or expansive; its power comes from restraint, from letting small images glow long enough to change temperature. With this release, Dyan offers a song that feels like a held breath, a moment of clarity in a year where answers stay elusive.