Christmas Songs That Rock
- edgarstreetbooks
- Dec 10, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 13, 2025
“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” — George Carlin
Frank Mastropolo
“Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney played every instrument on 1979’s “Wonderful Christmastime” including the synthesizer that created all of its echoey chord progressions. It was McCartney’s first solo effort after Wings’ final LP, 1979’s Back to the Egg. The band took part in the song’s video and performed it during Wings’ UK tour in late 1979.
“The line between what Paul was doing solo and the band was not hard and fast,” recalled guitarist Laurence Juber in Medium. “We were aware of the fact he was doing his solo project, so it wasn’t really much of an issue. It was a little crazy the first time Wings did ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ live. They hadn’t told me there was going to be fake snow falling down. So I opened my mouth to sing the ‘choir of angels’ backing vocals, and I got a mouthful of fake snow [laughs]. I don’t think any of my band mates noticed, but I’m sure some of the audience did.”
“Step Into Christmas” by Elton John
“Step Into Christmas” was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin the morning of Nov. 11, 1973. On his site, John notes a 1973 interview in which he said that this was the first stand-alone single written by the two. “The Christmas single is a real loon about and something we’d like to do a lot more of. We’ve never written a song especially tailored to be a single.”
The song would reach №1 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart. It was recorded the same afternoon it was written. “I came up with this pretty cool acoustic/electric guitar riff,” said Davey Johnstone, “and we were off to the races!”
John incorporated elements of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production techniques in recording “Step Into Christmas.” “We wanted to make an homage to Phil Spector,” John told the Sunday Post. “Part of what made Phil Spector records were the rooms, the musicians and the ambience.”
“Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms
Released in 1957, “Jingle Bell Rock” was one of the first songs to link Christmas with rock music. “I wasn’t sure about putting rock ’n’ roll into Christmas,” Helms told the Los Angeles Times. “But it’s just one of those songs. You never know.”
“Bobby originally did not want to do it because he didn’t believe it was right to mix rock and roll with Christmas,” recalled Helms’ manager John Kleiman on radio’s Hoosier History Live. “So the song does not mention Christmas anywhere.”
The song was written by Joseph Beale and James Boothe but that was disputed by Helms. “I wrote the music, but I didn’t get the credit,” Helms claimed in Classic Bands. “‘Jingle Bell Rock’ didn’t have no bridge in it. So, I changed that. They said you just sing it however you want to. Change it, ’cause I got the publishing. You just change it however you want to. It don’t matter about that. I never got no credit because I didn’t know that much about it.”
“Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys
The Beach Boys released “Little Saint Nick” as a single in 1963 and included the tune the following year in The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album. The holiday song was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. “To me, it was a terrific nod to the car songs that had become so popular,” Al Jardine noted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“It has that great shuffle feel of ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ and it captures the Christmas spirit, I think. It has that wonderful, typical Brian Wilson genius for melody. There’s just a special feeling about it.”
Wilson rerecorded “Little Saint Nick” and another track, “The Man With All the Toys,” for his 2005 solo album, All I Really Want for Christmas. “I came up with the song ‘Little Saint Nick’ when I was in my car and I wrote the melody and the lyrics in my head without instruments,” Wilson recalled in Record Collector. “I chose to rerecord them because I thought we could do a better version of those songs than the Beach Boys and we did, too.
“My memories of recording that 1964 record was a real happy time for us, the Beach Boys and I were real happy doing it.”
“I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood became a glam rock pioneer after he left Electric Light Orchestra to form Wizzard. The band released “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” in late 1973. Wood and band members Mike Burney (saxophone) and Rick Price (bass) described in Q magazine the story behind the song.
“I’d been doing really boring big band gigs on the ballroom circuit, so when Roy offered me a job in Wizzard I was just knocked out,” said Burney. “I used to say to him, ‘Roy, being in this band, it’s like Christmas every day.’ And, as far as I know, Roy picked up on that as a song title.”
“I decided to make a Christmas single because they’d been unfashionable for years,” said Wood. “We thought it would be worth trying a real rock and roll Christmas song.”
The vocal tracks were the most important thing,” added Price. “We always tried to get a sort of party vibe when we recorded the vocals. I would do a lot of the high and low vocal parts. We didn’t go in for drugs, but mostly we were drunk. I can still smell every breath of vodka in that record.”
“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” was first performed by Eddie Cantor on his radio show in November 1934. Cantor sold more than 30,000 records in twenty-four hours and the song has been popular ever since. Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and the Four Seasons all had hits with the tune over the past decades. In 1963 producer Phil Spector gave the song his Wall of Sound treatment in a recording by the Crystals.
That version inspired Bruce Springsteen to perform “Santa Claus” live at C.W. Post College in Brookvile, NY in 1975. First released in 1982, the song has become part of Springsteen’s setlist during the holiday season.
“Father Christmas” by the Kinks
The Kinks released “Father Christmas” in 1977, a song with an attitude that suited the punk rock era. The song tells of a department store Santa mugged by kids for his toys. “When the record came out we were on tour with a very successful band at the time supporting them,” Ray Davies told radio’s KSWD.
“I went on dressed as Santa at the end of the show to do ‘Father Christmas.’ And the other band found it hard to follow us. The following night with the same band I went to run on but there was a bunch of heavies preventing me from running on stage. And I was protesting. But the people said, ‘The Kinks didn’t do an encore but Santa Claus was there and they were stopping him from going on stage.’”
“It was a lot of fun,” Dave Davies told ABC News Radio. “I even do it in my own set sometimes. It’s a very funny song. ‘Father Christmas’ is very special to me, ’cause [it was] an opportunity to put interesting guitar parts in there . . . guitar riffs that sound great.”
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love
Darlene Love recorded “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” in 1963 for the LP A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. The legendary producer applied his Wall of Sound recording techniques to a collection of holiday standards. “It was the one original song on the Christmas album, and I had no idea it was going to really do anything,” Love told Entertainment Weekly.
“I knew at the time when we recorded it it was a great song, but a Christmas song then a hit? That doesn’t happen. Bing Crosby had ‘White Christmas’ a million years ago. That was a big Christmas hit. I’m not saying it’s as big as ‘White Christmas,’ but people put it up there.
“It’s like everybody has now started to do it in their Christmas shows, and everybody has started to do it on their television shows and in their live shows. It’s becoming the song to do. And that makes me proud, that I was the original person that recorded it.”
Love’s performance of the song became a tradition on The David Letterman Show that began in 1986 and continued until the program’s last holiday show in 2014.
“I was doing a show at the Bottom Line in New York City called Leader of the Pack with Paul Shaffer,” recalled Love. “So one night he asked David to come down and see the show. On the show the next night, David tells Paul, ‘Are you still doing that show down at the Bottom Line?’
“And Paul said yes. And he said, ‘Well, you know that song that that girl sings? That Christmas song? That’s the greatest Christmas song I’ve ever heard. We need to get her on the show.’ I thought it was going to be a one-time-only thing. It happened year after year after year.”
Of course, none of the above surpass the Greatest Christmas Song Ever.
Frank Mastropolo is the author of the Greatest Performances series and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
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