Laurie Anderson will present her own two-hour special on BBC Radio 6 Music on December 25 at 7 PM GMT as part of the station's annual Wise Women strand, followed that same evening by her three choices of archive programs: Lou Reed's New York Shuffle at 9 PM, Bob Dylan's Big Freeze at 10 PM, and 6 Music Live Hour with Tracy Chapman, Amy Winehouse, and Lou Reed at 11 PM. Anderson's is the first of three Wise Women evenings, followed by Róisín Murphy on the 26th and Peaches on the 27th.

For her special, Laurie Anderson shares some of her favorite songs themed around fear and loss, topics she addresses in her new film and album, Heart of a Dog. Her two-hour show features music by artists including Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Dinah Washington, Jimmy Cliff, Beck, and her late husband, Lou Reed. Her curated program choices are Lou Reed's New York Shuffle, which runs the gamut from jazz to contemporary indie to vintage rock. Originally broadcast from Reed's home, he co-hosted the show with music producer Hal Willner, who collaborated with Reed on the film Berlin. Anderson also picks Bob Dylan's Big Freeze, presented by Bob Harris, which tells the story of Dylan's first visit to the UK during the freezing winter of 1962–63. She follows this with archive music sessions from Tracy Chapman, Lou Reed and Amy Winehouse.

"It's wonderful to be a Wise Woman of 6 Music this Christmas," says Anderson. "I'm going to share with my listeners some of my all-time favorite songs from some of the queens of music including Nina Simone and Anne Peebles. The songs I'll be playing are about people who are looking for things, and also about their fears. Some of the songs are about consolation, and some are about freedom and a lot of them are about problems and what to do about them."

For more on the special, click here. For the full BBC 6 Music Christmas Day schedule, click here.