| |  Without Santa Claus, there can be no Christmas, at least not in the United States. He is everywhere during the silly season. We have him filled with air and sitting on the lawn, we have him painted on windows. We have Santa Claus Letters sitting in the house and Santa himself riding in parades. But even with the letters from Santa Claus, the thing we can’t escape from is the songs. Some of them are older than others but these have all become classics.
There is no doubt that one Santa song really rules the roost. It was written in 1934 by someone (some ones, there were 2 writers). The day after it was first performed on the radio there were orders for 100,000 copies of the sheet music. By Christmas that year it was at 400,000 and this was during the Great Depression! Since then it has been recorded once or twice. Well, by over 90 artists and not all ones that you would really expect. It has been done by Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, the California Raisins, Cyndi Lauper with Frank Sinatra, Dokken, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Partridge Family, Smothers Brothers, and Miley Cyrus just to name a few. It is the song that tells the story of Santa just as we know it. You could be from outer space and learn most of what you need to know about American Christmas lore just from this one song. The phase “making a list and checking it twice” now is used to mean being through.
Santa songs don’t have to be just for kids. If fact, the cutest Santa song the kids won’t really understand. Even once they “get it” they just dismiss as dad playing Santa, not the real one that will be a long any minute. That’s right, its “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.” The song is from1952 when Niemen Marcus commission it. The song was not a big hit with the Catholic Church because, in their eyes, it mixed Christmas with sex. Mixing Christmas and magic elves is fine.
Much less controversial is “Here comes Santa Claus.” It was written in 1947 by the great Gene Autry. He wrote it after attending a Christmas parade. As Santa was pulling up the rear of the parade the children all started yelling “Here comes Santa Claus!” We already knew he lived at the North Pole, but thanks to the song we now have a street address on the jolly old elf.
“Santa Baby”. Hmmmm. It must be said it is the sexiest Santa song as can be witnessed by the most recent artist to record it like LeAnn Rimes, Kellie Pickler, and Taylor Swift. Even Miss Piggy has sung it. It was first sung by Ertha Katts and became her signature song. She rerecorded an up tempo version that served as a base for Madonna cover. New versions of the song often change the word on some of the gifts to keep up with the times. In one, the ’54 convertible has become a convertible blue space ship.
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