The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast
The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast celebrates the magic of live music through sharing personal stories. Each week, our guests will share their stories of different shows that were memorable and meaningful to them. We’ll also have concert reviews and conversations with musicians and crew members who put on those live shows. By sharing their stories, we hope to engage you - our audience - to relive your live music memories also. So please join us every week as we explore the transformative power of live music that makes attending concerts not just entertaining, but essential. This is The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast, where every concert tells a story.
The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast
Episode 038 - Top 20 Rock-N-Roll Christmas Songs
This week, we unwrap our Favorite Christmas Songs. It's a double-stuffed episode of our 20 favorite Christmas songs, AND our 3 favorite Hanukkah songs. This episode will take us up to Christmas Eve, so we won't have an episode on Dec. 17th, but please share this episode with your friends and let us know what your favorite Christmas songs are in the comments!
And most of all - have a very happy, healthy holidays from The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast! Thanks so much for checking our show out!!
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Welcome to The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another top 10 list for you. Now that it's December and the holiday season is in full swing, I've put together a list of my favorite rock-n-roll holiday songs, but because I've got so many favorites and in the spirit of giving for Christmas, this week's list is going to be a top 20 list for you to enjoy and maybe even share with your friends and family as you get together for the holidays. That's right. It's a double sized episode for Christmas. So stick around for the list of my top 20 favorite holiday songs coming up right now. You know, it's funny to me that I developed such a love of Christmas music as I was a Jewish kid in New York City. But as there really wasn't any popular Hanukkah music when I was young, all popular holiday music was Christmas music. And we were inundated by it all December long, in stores, on the radio, and on TV, where the Christmas specials had catchy, memorable theme songs sung by mostly Burl Ives, notably Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, which were the earliest holiday songs I remember. Along with the mid century classics like White Christmas, Silver Bells, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. Then things picked up a little bit and we had Jingle Bell Rock, Let it Snow, Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. And so many more. There was also the Chipmunks Christmas classic, The Chipmunk Song(Christmas Don't Be Late), which seemed fun when I was little. And as I noted in episode 26, back in September was the first fictional band I was ever aware of. As I got a little older, I started hearing the early covers of classic Christmas songs done by contemporary artists and I heard them mostly on the radio. And that caught my attention First, the granddaddy of them all, the Phil Spector album, A Christmas Gift For You that had Darlene Love's versions of White Christmas, A Marshmallow World, Winter Wonderland, and Christmas Baby Please Come Home, as well as the Ronette's version of Frosty the Snowman, Sleigh Ride, and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. That was just a monumentally great record. Then there were the Motown Christmas songs, most memorably the Jackson 5's Santa Claus is Coming to Town and their version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, both from their Jackson 5 Christmas Album. After that, when I started listening to my own radio stations, the rock-n-roll stations out of New York City, they'd start playing the rock versions of those Christmas songs along with original Christmas songs by rock-n-roll artists starting around Mid December every year that included everything from The Band's Christmas Must Be Tonight to the Kinks' Father Christmas to Elton John's Step Into Christmas and many more. Then I heard Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer and I realized that maybe not every Christmas song was a good Christmas song, but still I was totally into the rock-n-roll and the R and B Christmas music. And now today, it seems like every band has recorded at least one Christmas song. Well, I guess every band except Led Zeppelin or Rush. I haven't found any examples of that from either of them yet. There are songs by Bob Seger, Blondie, The Wilson Sisters from Heart, Weezer, Bon Jovi, Oasis, John Mellencamp, The Ramones, even Bob Dylan. He released a whole Christmas album in 2009 that included an excellent take on the old Mitch Miller song, Must Be Santa. Mariah Carey has the most successful Christmas pop song of all time, I would assume, with her original All I Want for Christmas is You. That was done in 1994, and while I don't love the song, it does get a little tiresome to hear over and over and over again every December. It's a brilliantly written Christmas song. Credit where credit's due. She wrote that song with just her primary writing partner of many years. She didn't need 20 people on the track to write it and produce it for her. And I respect the heck out of her for writing a modern day classic that will stand up with the best Christmas songs ever. Now, Wham's Last Christmas, on the other hand, is my least favorite Christmas song of all time. Sorry if that's a hot take you're not comfortable with, but I cringe every time I hear it. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, there are also adult Christmas songs that, while they didn't really give me the same Christmas vibe as the songs that made my list, are still fun and definitely good rock-n-roll songs. I'm thinking of songs like Spinal Tap's Christmas with the Devil and AC/DC's Mistress for Christmas. They're both fun. Maybe not family friendly, and they're not on this list. Finally, I had too many songs on my list. It was getting out of hand, and so I needed to find a way to whittle down the list, since I love so many Christmas songs. Then I realized that there are a bunch of songs that are considered Christmas songs, but don't actually mention Christmas anywhere in their lyrics. Songs like Winter Wonderland, A Marshmallow World, Uh, Baby, It's Cold Outside, Sleigh Ride, and the aforementioned Frosty the Snowman aren't really about Christmas, they're really just songs about winter. Sure, the Frosty TV special had Santa Claus in it, but the song doesn't mention anything about Christmas. Nor do the others I just mentioned, so while it was tough to leave a few of those off the list, that's exactly what I did, and that just about solved my problem. Anyway, over the years, I've compiled so many Christmas music CDs, all of which sadly I've now given away that I am deeply versed in rock and soul holiday music. And with that background for context, let's get to my favorite 20 Christmas songs. Starting off with number 20 on the list. It's Do They Know It's Christmas by the British collective Band Aid. The song was written by Bob Geldof, who you might know from the band, the Boomtown Rats, they're the band that did I Don't Like Mondays. He also starred as Pink in the movie, Pink Floyd, The Wall. And he wrote the song with Midge Ure of the band Ultravox. They wrote the song hoping to raise some money to aid the famine relief efforts in Ethiopia. I heard Geldof on a BBC show two weeks ago say that the initial goal was to raise 70, 000 British pounds. They decided to write and record a charity single, something that hadn't really been done before, at least in the way they were going to do it. And they made that decision on November 5th of 1984. In three weeks, they wrote the song, got many of the top British pop artists of the day to agree to record it, and on November 25th, they all gathered at a recording studio in Notting Hill in London, and in one day recorded all of the vocals over a track that had been finished just the previous day, with Midge Ure and his engineer, along with John Taylor from Duran Duran laying down the bass track, and Paul Weller of The Jam playing the guitar part. The record was released on December 7th in the UK, December 10th in the U. S. That was just a month after the idea was conceived. And the song immediately went to number one in the UK and made more than 8 million pounds in its first year alone. Now I saw another interview with Bob Geldof from 12 or 13 days ago on a gold radio show that said the song has raised more than 200 million dollars to date overall I was 15 years old when the song came out, and while most of the artists on that track were not the ones I was into at the time, the song itself holds a very special place in my heart. Every time I hear the opening notes of the song with the bells, it feels like Christmas, and it still haunts me that the issue the song was created to address has not been resolved. People are still starving all over the world, even as millions of people in Ethiopia were able to be fed because of the revenue generated by this track and its offshoots from other countries that followed. Now, we as a global society simply haven't figured out a way to share enough of our resources with all of our fellow human beings. The lyrics are still very powerful, a reminder of how fortunate we are to be able to celebrate the holidays with our loved ones and try to do something, anything to help people less fortunate than we are. And that makes it a perfect song to kick off our list. Song 19 is the Trans Siberian Orchestra with Sarajevo Christmas Eve 12/24. This is the only instrumental on my list and you may not recognize the name of this band, but then hopefully that's one of the things you like best about this podcast. That I'm always trying to introduce you to something you might not have heard before. Now, this band is an American rock band that started out when a composer, producer, and manager named Paul O'Neill, who is definitely not the Yankee star right fielder from their dynasty years in the late 90s. He had worked with everyone from Aerosmith and ACDC to Joan Jett, and he started producing the progressive metal band Savatage. Their collaboration led to forming a new band, which O'Neill envisioned as a modern mix of classical music mixed with progressive rock inspired by the bands like Yes and ELP, Pink Floyd, The Who, and Queen, and they set out to record a series of rock operas, the first of which ended up being a trilogy about Christmas. And so the Christmas Eve and other stories was born in 1996 and from that album came the hit song Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24, which had actually been recorded by the band Savatage a year earlier and became a top 50 hit for two straight Januaries, leading to record sales for Trans Siberian Orchestra of more than 2 million albums in the U. S. alone for their debut. The story behind the song is really compelling. The band had heard a story about a cello player who was born in Sarajevo back when it was still in Yugoslavia, who went out and played all over the world for his career. And when he came home decades later, as an old man, his city was being bombed nightly during the war between Serbia and Bosnia. And instead of hiding in the bomb shelters, like all of his neighbors, he went out into the bombed out square, sat on the rubble and started playing Christmas carols on his cello. The band was so inspired by this story that they put together a medley of two well known Christmas songs. They are God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, and The Carol of the Bells, as a tribute to this man's spirit. And while the band has released a number of other albums since, it's live where they truly shine. They put on a full arena rock show with lasers, pyrotechnics, a massive sound system and light system, a full rock-n-roll show. Their show should not be missed. The The 18th song on our list is Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmas Time. This song has always been kind of polarizing. Some people love it and some people really do not. I read an essay about the reasons why this must be on the Mental Floss website last year, right around this time, and the summary of that article was that the song is, at the same time, both overly simplistic structurally and overly complex musically. Also, McCartney used a very early version of the Prophet 5 synthesizer, which goes against the traditional holiday song instrumentation of real instruments, or in more modern recordings, synthesizers which are used to create lush beds of music. McCartney used his synthesizer in a more staccato way. With jabbing, repeating pulses of music that hadn't really been heard before. Those qualities combined with the inescapable comparison to John Lennon's holiday song, Merry Xmas(War Is Over) left this song, dividing the public between strong, like, and strong dislike. I'm a huge McCartney fan, and I am decidedly on the like side with this song, which is why of course it's on my list. I find the song playful and fun. It's got two of the key features of traditional pop Christmas songs. It's got the jingle bells playing throughout the song and a small choir of backing vocals. And the lyrics are simple, yes, but that's really the point of the song. He sings, we're here tonight and that's enough. We're simply having a wonderful Christmas time. And sometimes that is enough.
The word is out. At the town, to lift a glass. Oh, don't look down. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. A choir of children sing their song. They practice all year long. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong
Alex Gadd:Holiday song number 17 is Christmas is the time to say I love you by Billy Squire. This song was recorded in 1981 and released originally as the B side to My Kind of Lover, which was the third single from Billy Squier's hit album Don't Say No, but the song really took off when they recorded a video for the song at the MTV studios very early in MTV's existence with the original VJs and the MTV staff all in the background singing along. The video went into heavy rotation during the first Christmas MTV was on the air, which helped it to raise its profile among other original rock-n-roll Christmas songs. And the song just sounds like a celebration. The music sounds like a party right from the start as the intro features a large kind of rowdy sounding group of backup singers and a classic Christmas song feature bells. The crowd in the background continues to cheer and scream at the end of every verse, and then can be heard singing each chorus along a little rough, maybe a little out of tune. All the more fun.
And all the world is watching Santa Claus is ringing through the door Up the roof, down the chimney From Harlem to Birmingham They will find their way into your heart Christmas is hard to share I love you Share the joys of life, and I've got a good cheer. And Christmas is the time to say I love you. And I'll be here, at the last call for the year.
Alex Gadd:The lyrics are perfect for the holidays focused on telling the people in your life that you love them. It's just a feel good song and who can't use a few more of those during the holidays? The 16th song on my list is Christmas All Over Again by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In the liner notes to the box set Playback, which is right over here, yeah, I just read the liner notes the other day, and, Tom Petty explained how this song came to be. Jimmy Iovine, who had produced Tom and the band's breakthrough third album, Damn the Torpedoes, and his fourth album, Hard Promises, went on to produce many other things, including A Very Special Christmas compilation album in 1987, which was a charity album, the proceeds of which went to the Special Olympics. That album contains a few songs that we'll talk about later in this countdown, but it didn't have any song by Tom and the Heartbreakers on it. Then, five years later, when Iovine was planning a sequel record, he nagged Tom to finally give him a Christmas song. So Tom and Mike Campbell sat down to write one, because they didn't want to just do a cover as many of the other artists had done. What they wrote was Christmas All Over Again. And man, did they knock it out of the park! It's got the sleigh bells, the Christmas bells in the chorus and the jangly Rickenbacker guitars that Tom Petty fans have come to expect from his more poppy songs. It's folksy, and it really gets to the heart of what it feels like at Christmas time in the U S or at least how it felt to me when I was a kid
Too bad he next to mine And this is all we got Hey Christmas time Come and find me and you Happy and they're bright You're fire I hope you have a good one I hope mama gets her shopping done And it's Christmas time Oh, baby, it's Christmas all over again. Oh, baby, it's Christmas all over again.
Alex Gadd:and like him, I want a new Rickenbacker guitar. Two Fender Bassmans and a Chuck Berry songbook too. At number 15, I put Rob Thomas' A New York Christmas. Rob Thomas, you might know, is the lead singer and songwriter from the 90s band Matchbox 20, who's also had a significant solo career, he wrote one of the most successful songs ever tracked by the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, which was Carlos Santana's Smooth. So what's he doing writing an original song about Christmas time in New York? That's supposed to be left to the Irish band The Pogues. But in doing some research on him, I found out that he married a woman from Queens, New York, and he's lived in the city for years. And at the time that he wrote it, he was going into a hospital in the aftermath of 9/11 to cheer up some kids. And he felt like he should write a song for the occasion, and so this song was born. The song surprised me when I first heard it because I found Matchbox 20s music to be a little too slick and kind of not genuine, not authentic alt rock for my taste at the time, but the song definitely got under my skin. I responded to his plaintive singing about the less fortunate that need to be understood and appreciated and supported more than ever. That's my kind of song, not just a holiday song, but a song that is a prayer for peace on earth within our time.
Call on your angels, come down to the city. We'll crowd around the big tree. All you strangers who know me, bring your compassion, your understanding. Cause Lord now we need it, on this New York City Christmas. And I'm sending you a merry New York Christmas And a prayer for peace on earth within our time
Alex Gadd:It's a perfect holiday song. It's about being together and sharing love and compassion during the holidays. We need more songs like this and not just for the holidays. I would say. I would put it higher on my list, except I don't have a real long history with it. I just came to really start listening to and appreciating it in the last five years or so, even though, as I noted, it came out much earlier in 2002. So go give it a listen. And I hope you all have a merry New York City Christmas. Song number 14, Everybody's Waiting for the Man with the Bag by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Now this song was written in 1950 originally and performed by a woman named Kay Starr, and her version made the rounds throughout the early 50s. Since then it's been recorded by other artists throughout the years, but I love the Brian Setzer Orchestra, and their version is my pick. Brian Setzer, you might know, is the original guitarist and songwriter from the Stray Cats, who were an early 80s rockabilly inspired band. They had two legitimate hits off their first U. S. album in 1982, the songs Stray Cats Strut and Rock This Town, as well as one of my all time favorite songs, put it on your list, Rumble in Brighton. Great song. After their next record though, Brian broke up the Stray Cats because he said he was getting bored and started a solo career. Unfortunately, that solo career didn't really take off, which led to reunion albums with the Stray Cats starting in 1986. But by 1992, after four more records. They were done for good. He started the Brian Setzer Orchestra that same year, and they released their debut album in 1994, playing a cool combination of rockability, swing music, big band, and jump blues, with songs that were a mix of covers and Setzer originals. It was a modern interpretation of a big band, complete with a 12 piece horn section, three female backup singers, and then a bass player and a drummer. Their only big popular hit was their cover of Louis Prima's Jump, Jive, and Wail from their 1998 third album, The Dirty Boogie. And then it was two albums later that they recorded and released their first Christmas album, 2002's Boogie Woogie Christmas, which included their cover of Everybody's Waiting for the Man with the Bag.
He's got a sleigh full, it's not gonna stay full. He's got stuff to drop at every stop of the way. Everybody's waiting for the man with the best. Christmas is coming again. He'll be here. With the answer to the prayers that you made through the years. And you'll get yours. If you've done everything you should. Extra special good.
Alex Gadd:It's got the BSO's classic mix of jump blues, swing, and big band, and Sounds like a classic Christmas song. So get out your cocktail shaker, your Santa hat, and clear some room to dance in the living room and put on the Brian Setzer Orchestra's Boogie Woogie Christmas. The 13th song on our list is Eartha Kitt's classic Christmas song, Santa Baby. This song stands out from many of the others on this list due to its distinctive tone. Unlike the more traditional sentimental Christmas songs that focus on themes of love and family and togetherness, Santa Baby takes a humorous and almost racy approach to the holiday spirit. The song was written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer in 1953, and presents a tongue in cheek Christmas list from a woman who playfully asked Santa Claus for lavish gifts, such as jewelry from Tiffany's, a convertible, and a yacht. This light hearted materialism was quite different from the typical messages of selflessness and goodwill, adding a refreshing twist to the traditional Christmas song. Eartha Kitt's sultry and sophisticated vocal delivery imbues the song with a sense of charm and wit, perfectly capturing the playful flirtation intended by the lyrics. Her distinctive voice characterized by its seductive purr elevates the song, making it both memorable and instantly recognizable. And the music compliments her performance, creating a warm, cozy atmosphere that feels nostalgic and yet still timeless, as the song remains in heavy rotation virtually every December. Lots of people have covered this song, most notably Madonna, who did a great job channeling Eartha Kitt along with mixing in a little bit of Betty Boop when she did the song in the late 80s. But leave it to the original Eartha Kitt, who nailed this nightcap of all Christmas songs. Song 12 on our list is a version of God rest ye merry gentlemen Mashed up with we three kings as recorded by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan. I heard this when it was released in 2004 on the band's Barenaked for the Holidays album and immediately was drawn in by the stand up bass that started off the song with such a great groove. I was actually surprised it was a Christmas song. Then when Sarah comes in to start the We Three Kings portion, she really takes it to another level. Her voice is truly angelic and the vocal interplay between her and the Ladies is impressive. It's a great mashup that brings a smile to my face every December when I hear it. There's no heavy story here, just a great arrangement of two Christmas songs that alone, I don't particularly love. But together, arranged the way they were, they're way more than the sum of their parts. Check it out. At number 11 on our list is I Believe in Father Christmas by Emerson Lake and Palmer. This song was written by ELP bassist Greg Lake, with lyrics by King Crimson's Peter Sinfield, who just passed away last month. The song was released on Lake's first solo album in 1975, though that's not the version that most of us are familiar with. The one we're familiar with, is one that was recorded by Lake's band, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and released two years later. The original one I think is a little too overproduced, a little busy in its production. The version that we hear all the time is much simpler and much more straightforward. And to me, it just sounds like Christmas, which is odd, if only because Lake claims he wrote it as an objection to the commercialization of Christmas. Yet the original song went to number two on the singles chart in the UK, and the ELP version gets a ton of airplay every December, as well as having over 15 million streams on Spotify. It's the band's third most popular tune on that platform, and it's definitely worthy of a listen. Enjoy it this Christmas. We're on to the top ten now, and at number ten is a special twofer from the king. It's Elvis with Blue Christmas and Santa Claus is Back in Town. Elvis recorded a ton of Christmas songs, and I couldn't pick between my two favorites. So I'm including them both. Hey, it's my list. And there's precedent for combining them. They were released as a double A side single in 1965, and eventually that single sold more than a million copies by itself. Even though the songs had been out for eight years already, they were released on Elvis's first Christmas record in 1957. Now, Blue Christmas is one of the saddest of all Christmas songs, I find, but I just love it. He recorded this one, as I mentioned, in 1957. He had the Jordanaires backing him up. They do an incredible job adding an extra texture that makes a song even better than it would have been without them. The song was first recorded by other people in the late 1940s, no less than five times before Elvis got it for his album, which was called Elvis's Christmas Album. But then it wasn't even released as a single until 1964. And then again, as a double A side single in 1965. But since then, it's been an absolute staple as an early example of a rock-n-roll Christmas song. Now let's talk about Elvis's coolest Christmas song. The other song on our list, Santa Claus is Back in Town from the same album, Elvis's Christmas Album. It's got everything you want from an Elvis tune. Double entendres courtesy of Lieber and Stoller, again, the Jordanaires hitting it out of the park with their backing vocals and the breakdowns that Elvis used most often early in his career, where the band drops out and Elvis shakes his hips so the crowds can go crazy. Remember, Jailhouse Rock uses that effect in every line of the verses. Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog also use that to great effect. And interestingly, the song really isn't about Christmas because Santa tells us he's got no sleigh with reindeer, no sack on his back. You're going to see him coming in a big black Cadillac. As I mentioned, it's all a big double entendre, which makes his line in the second verse about how Santa Claus is coming down your chimney tonight way more racy than it was common to hear in 1957. Imagine being a parent and saying, honey, gather grandma and the kids around the phonograph so we can listen to the new Elvis Christmas album. Yikes. Merry Christmas, indeed. Song number nine is Run Rudolph Run by Chuck Berry. This is classic Chuck Berry music, with his trademark Johnny B. Goode guitar intro and lyrics that are a perfect example of his brilliance as a songwriter, with very specific references to what young people would have been asking Santa for at Christmastime in the 50s. The song was recorded and released in 1958 and actually charted on the Hot 100 singles Chart that December, which is kind of unusual for a Christmas song. Normally Christmas songs were relegated to the holiday singles chart, but this track got up as high as number 69 on the actual singles chart. It's interesting to note here that Chuck was sued by a guy named Johnny Marks who owned the trademark to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at the time, and so Chuck ended up having to give this guy, Marks, a co writing credit, even though Marks had nothing to do with the creation of the song in any way. If only Chuck had called the song Run Dasher Run. I also always found it interesting that the song title is never once sung in the song. Chuck sings Run, Run, Rudolph no less than 10 times, but never does he sing Run, Rudolph, Run. I was always curious about this, but I've really figured out that that's just how songwriting works sometimes. If you're thinking to yourself that this song has been covered a bunch of times, you'd be right. I stopped counting after about 40 different covers, but my favorite of them was by Bryan Adams, also on that first A Very Special Christmas album in 1987. Now, there are a bunch of acts who've recorded rock-n-roll covers of this that I was looking forward to hearing, but most of those ended up being fairly generic by the book versions. Those include Turn of the Millennium, Lynyrd Skynyrd doing a okay version, Cheap Trick doing an interesting version that maybe isn't as by the book, Bob Seger, Sheryl Crow, Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Billy Idol, the Reverend Horton Heat, Los Lonely Boys, The Grateful Dead, and Dave Edmonds all took a swing at this one. The weirdest cover of Run Rudolph Run that I've ever come across was sung by Lemmy Kilmeister of Motorhead with the Reverend Billy Gibbons on guitar and Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters and Nirvana on drums. The music on that track is amazing, but the vocals are maybe Lemmy's worst ever. And he's an acquired taste vocally to begin with. Then Dave Grohl took a turn singing the song with his Foo Fighters in 2020, but his vocal track was more screaming than singing, which knocked it down a notch in my book. Anyway, when one of the fundamental architects of rock-n-roll music writes an original Christmas tune, it's going to be in the top 10. Number eight on our list is Run DMC with Christmas In Hollis. This one is also from A Very Special Christmas, the album in 1987. It was the third original rap Christmas song that I've ever aware of. Written by the band themselves, Hollis is a neighborhood in Queens, New York, where the three guys grew up. And the song is a great mashup of riffs on the Frosty the Snowman theme song, Jingle Bells, and Joy to the World. And the song bed is a sample from the beginning of Clarence Carter's Backdoor Santa all good references, and they all add to the Christmas vibe. Rev. Run takes the first verse, which is a parable about how Santa tests him by leaving his wallet behind for Run to find, loaded with a million dollars in cash in it. But because Run knows not to ever steal from Santa, cause that ain't right, he plans to mail it back to Santa, only to get home and find a letter from St. Nick under his Christmas tree, telling him that the money was for him. DMC's got the second verse, which is more of a slice of life scene about how Christmas went down in his house. Drinking eggnog, singing Christmas carols. Then Run and DMC share the third verse in which they celebrate the holiday and the Christmas spirit. And DMC takes us out in the last verse, with Run and Jay joining in at the end to wish us all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Song number seven is Peace on Earth Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Yep, that's a particularly odd combination. Especially when they got together to record this duet, and one of the early mashups that I was ever aware of, in 1977 for Bing's Merrie Olde Christmas special on CBS. The concept of that special was that Bing got an invitation from his long lost relative, Sir Percy Crosby to come to England to celebrate Christmas with his family. Once he got there in a classic old manor house, who should show up at the door, but David Bowie to borrow Sir Percy's piano, as they're neighbors. What ensues is some uncomfortable small talk as they introduce themselves to one another, but then they break into a beautiful performance, first of Little Drummer Boy, and then as Bing continues singing that song, Bowie bursts out into the song Peace on Earth. The music is magical, even with the traditional orchestration and no hint of rock or roll. Now I have to imagine that Bing didn't love playing second fiddle to Bowie on his own special, but Bowie was one of the biggest stars in the music world at that time, in 77, and Bing was a holdover from an entirely different generation. Sadly, Bing passed away before the special was even finished recording, but the song He and Bowie Left Us is truly transcendent, and a holiday playlist must have.
I pray my wish will come true for my child and your child, too. You'll see the day of glory. You'll see the day when men of good will live in peace again. There'll be summer. Can it be? Can it be? It's a pretty thing, isn't it?
Alex Gadd:Coming in at number 6, Stevie Wonder with Someday at Christmas. I always think of this song as the"Imagine" of Christmas music, and you'll see why if you give it a listen. It came out as the title track to Stevie's first Christmas record in 1967, and is a set of wishes for a more peaceful world, where people are free and treated equal and hunger and hate are eradicated, all around Christmastime. Now the heartbreaking part of the song is that Stevie keeps slipping in,"Maybe not in time for you and me, but someday at Christmastime." As if he knew that the road to progress wouldn't be easy or quick to achieve. Interestingly, this song was not written by Stevie at all. Two guys named Ron Miller and Bryan Wells wrote the song. Now, Ron Miller was a songwriter for Motown in the sixties and seventies, and he wrote a bunch of other songs for Stevie Wonder, including For Once In My Life. And on many of those songs, he had Bryan Wells composing the music. The song was then covered three years later by the Jackson Five at the height of their popularity with Michael Jackson singing the lead at 12 years old. And then just two years ago, Lizzo released a version of the song, which she performed on Saturday Night Live to great acclaim. It's a beautiful Christmas song and a prayer for all of us. I encourage you to listen to Someday At Christmas In the fifth spot is 2000 miles by the Pretenders. This is a rare Christmas song, not released on a Christmas album. It appeared as the final song on the band's 1984 album, Learning to Crawl, which featured the big hits Middle of the Road and Back on the Chain Gang. The song is a love song about being 2,000 miles apart from the one that you love, and realizing that while Chrissie was missing her man, it was Christmas time. I find this song to be beautiful and hopeful, despite the singer's despair at missing her man. The lines, I can hear people singing, it must be Christmas time, can either be interpreted to mean that she's more sad because she's alone at Christmas, or she finds comfort in the fact that it's Christmas and there are people around singing Christmas carols. The lyrics never really let on to which way Chrissie was actually feeling, so I choose to believe she's finding comfort in the season, as do I. The song was released in late 1983 as a single in advance of the album's release. And it's become a true Christmas classic reentering the charts almost every year come December. It does especially well in the UK. Give it a listen, send out some love to your people who are far away. Song number four is Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. And I chose the Jackson Five version of this Christmas classic. For those of you who know me or listen to this podcast with any regularity, you'll know that Bruce Springsteen is my all time favorite artist, hands down. So it's very difficult to not pick his live recording of this all time great song for the list. But his version is a straight pull from the Jackson's track, which was recorded and released in 1970 on their Christmas record, Jackson Five Christmas Album. And that album sold extremely well, more than 3 million copies. But at the time that it was released, Billboard did not allow holiday records to be tracked on their top album chart. So it was relegated to the holiday album chart where it spent four weeks at number one. Michael, as I said, 12 years old at the time of this recording, the band was at the peak of their fame. The arrangement keeps the tempo up and the verses seem to be so short as to be treated as nothing more than detours before Michael can burst back into the chorus at full volume. It's really an amazing performance. The song itself has an interesting history. It's one of the earlier pop Christmas songs ever written. It was written in 1934 and performed by a guy named Eddie Cantor live on his radio show in November of that year And that performance catapulted the song in its popularity. To show you how long ago that was, the measure of a song's success in the early 1930s was how many copies of the sheet music were sold. The reports claim that more than half a million copies of the sheet music for this song were sold after that single radio performance And while that's hard to really believe and hard to know how they measured it. It's also how things were in the thirties, because more families at that time played popular music in their home on instruments, then listened to it on the radio. I checked and found a brief history of American radio, which said that in 1939, only about 40 percent of U.S. Households had a radio in it. Whereas 10 years later, by 1949, that percentage was up over 80%. But Americans spent the early decades of the 20th century playing music at home, and so reading sheet music was the way to do that. Anyway, back to the song. It's supposedly been covered more than 200 times. That doesn't surprise me at all. And as I mentioned, I do think that Bruce's cover is a standard at this point. It's full of all the good things in a live Springsteen song from Bruce's charming spoken introduction to the high energy performance by the whole band, to Clarence's baritone"You better be good for goodness sake," and his killer sax solo. But in trying to be in any way objective on this podcast, the E Street performance is based on the arrangement that the Jackson 5 made popular. And since they did it first and they did it so well, the Jackson 5 version sits on our list at number four. Coming in at number three on the list is Darlene Love with Christmas Baby Please Come Home. She recorded this, as I mentioned before, for Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift to You record, which came out in 1963, and I consider that to be the greatest overall Christmas album. Darlene Love was one of the stars of that album, performing on at least four of the best songs on it. But this song is the best. Rolling Stone agrees with me they ranked it as the number one rock-n-roll Christmas song of all time, And while I feel strongly that it is one of the greatest, there are two that I prefer. But that's why it's my list. Darlene's career fell apart in the 1970s and early 1980s. And she was left cleaning people's houses in LA to make money until one day she heard this song on the radio and realized she was too talented to be cleaning people's homes. She tells this story with much more impact in the documentary, Six Feet from Stardom. I cannot recommend that highly enough. But in 1982 with some help from Steven Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen, she started performing again. And by 1986 she was performing Christmas(Baby Please Come Home) on the Late Night with David Letterman show on NBC. And then when he moved his show to CBS and took over the 1130 spot. She appeared on the final show before Christmas every year from 1994 through 2014, 21 years to sing this song. Since then she's performed it every year, but one on ABC's The View. Now, there have been other versions of this song recorded by big stars. Cher, who sang on the original Darlene Love version. as a backup singer, did a duet with Darlene Love recently. U2 did a cover. Mariah Carey's done a cover, but Darlene Love's version towers over all of them, at least in my opinion. Bono and U2's version is the one that you most hear on rock-n-roll stations. But the way I hear it, Bono is singing his version with a level of histrionics like he's desperate and his lover isn't coming home at all. Whereas Darlene sings her version with a sense of anticipation, at least the way I hear it, like her lover is only five minutes away and will be right there. But whichever version you choose, this is just a classic Christmas song and certainly worthy of my top three. Song number two is Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses. It's got a new wave sound that maintains some classic Christmas song flavor, and I absolutely love this track. The Waitresses were famous for the song I Know What Boys Like. They later did the theme song to the TV show Square Pegs, which featured a young Sarah Jessica Parker, also a young Jamie Gertz, among others. But this is their highest charting song ever, being released one year after I Know What Boys Like. And it's a great story song about how the singer. Patty Donahue keeps running into this interesting guy at events throughout the year, but they can never seem to get it together to actually start dating. Until on Christmas Eve, she realizes she has forgotten to buy cranberries for the world's smallest Turkey provided to her by A P and runs out in the snow to the only all night grocery where what to her wondering eyes should appear in that line, but the guy she's been chasing all year. When they both realize they forgot to buy cranberries, they laugh and catch on to what was happening. That the magic of Christmas had brought their tale to a very happy ending. I love the journey this song takes us on in just under five minutes, and I love Donahue's very casual delivery, an almost rap style that's suggested by the title of the song. The writer was bandleader Chris Butler, who said that the title also referred to the circular nature of the story in the song, but in 1981, rap music was just getting popular nationwide, Kurtis Blow had just released an early rap Christmas song. Possibly the first one I ever heard, which was also called Christmas Rappin' That was in 1979, dynamite song. And that certainly had to have some influence on the title as well. Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses has one of the most important Christmas song features, the ongoing jingle bells, and it also has one of the coolest sax breaks of all time. One that transcends Christmas songs altogether. It's soulsy and it's just perfect. It almost is weird to be. On a Christmas song that people only listen to one month out of the year because it's so good. But it's there and it's amazing. And like Patty, may we all do Christmas right this year. Before we get to the top song on our list, I wanted to call attention to three Hanukkah songs that are worth your time. It's a shame that there aren't 10 good rock-n-roll Hanukkah songs so that I could do its own list. But hey, three is better than one or none. Now my third favorite Hanukkah song is The Hanukkah Song by Adam Sandler. It was the first Hanukkah song to break out into the public consciousness that I'm aware of in terms of rock-n-roll songs. And it's still very funny. Although it's It's really not about Hanukkah. It's really about calling attention to all the stars in Hollywood and pop culture who were Jewish. Tom Cruise even gets name dropped in this song, even if it's only to point out that he's not Jewish, Sandler heard his agent was.
Tell your friends not to stop
Alex Gadd:He recorded multiple versions of this song throughout the years, each one with all new celebrities, and while it's not the most festive holiday song, it was an early entrant into the holiday songbook that left Hanukkah, O Hanukkah and Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel behind. So for that, I thank you, Adam Sandler. Second is How Do You Spell Channukkahh? by the New England based band The Levees. The Levees were founded by Adam Gardner from the band Guster and Dave Schneider of the hockey rock band The Zambonis. And they formed this band because they were both Jewish and noted the extreme lack of Hanukkah songs. So they set out to create a band that only puts out Hanukkah songs. Now they've played a Tiny Desk concert in 2023 that's worth your time. The first song that was played that day was this contemporary Hanukkah classic. Give it a listen. And finally, the top Hanukkah song of all time, at least so far, is from the ultra cool soul band Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings who put out the song Eight Days of Hanukkah as the first track on their amazing 2015 holiday album It's a Holiday Soul Party.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Alex Gadd:You gotta check out that whole record. It's first class from top to bottom. Okay, now what you've all been waiting for Coming in at number one on our list of the top Christmas songs is my guy Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and their rendition of Merry Christmas Baby. Originally it was written in 1947 by Johnny Moore and Lou Baxter and recorded by Moore's band. That band featured Charles Brown on the vocals and he became kind of associated with this song early on. Since then it's been by many, many other acts most notably Otis Redding. But when Bruce took it on, he brought his personal affection for soul music to bear in a way he really wouldn't again, until when he released an entire album of soul music covers two years ago called Only the Strong Survive. Merry Christmas Baby by Bruce was released on the first A Very Special Christmas album, which you've heard me mention once or twice already on this list. It was recorded live and the arrangement is straight from Otis Redding's version. Borrow from the best, I always say. This version has the classic Springsteen elements. A Clarence Clemons sax break, some glockenspiel, and lots of Bruce's personality shining through. He's in great voice on this track and the band sounds so laid back and yet so tight. It takes years to sound that relaxed together. I love the sentiment of the song, especially when he sings lyrics that he slightly modified and sings,"Merry Christmas, baby, you surely treat me right, and I feel like I'm living, just living in paradise." Doesn't everyone want to feel that way? While Otis Redding's version is so, so good, Bruce's version makes me happy every time I've ever heard it in a way that so few songs do, and that's why it's number one on my list of my favorite Christmas songs. And that's what I wish for all of you on this holiday season. Find the people in your life who make you the most happy. Get together with as many of them as you can reach out to the rest of them. Then listen to good music, eat good food, share good stories, and do something nice for those in our communities who are less fortunate than we are. Well, that's the list of my favorite Christmas songs. Which are your favorites? There's plenty of room for other opinions at The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. So please let me know what you think in the comments. And that's it for this week's episode. Let me wish you all a very happy holiday, no matter which holiday you're celebrating. This is a double sized episode, so we won't be back again until Tuesday, the 24th, which is Christmas Eve with our top 10 New Year's party songs. But I'll be posting other Christmas songs that are great, but didn't quite make our top 20 every day, starting tomorrow on social media so look for those each day. In the meantime, if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would like and subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about each new episode. And please tell your friends, share this around. Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode. So look for The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week, this week, featuring the songs I mentioned here. So check that out. Additionally, as I mentioned, we want to know what you think. So please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to every one of them. And we do love hearing from you. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, christmas is the time to say, I love you. And get those concert tickets.