🎄 Holidays! Christmas Songs Recorded and Issued on Non-Christmas Themed Albums

JOv2

JOv2

Well-Known Member
Let’s see if we can get a list going.

Here are my three:
  • Santa Claus is Coming to Town — Bill Evans / The Solo Sessions, Vol. 2 [Rec. 10JAN63; Rel. 1992]
  • We Free Kings [essentially the same melody and changes as We Three Kings] — Roland Kirk / We Free Kings [Rec. 16, 17AUG61; Rel. JAN62]
  • My Favourite Things — John Coltrane / My Favourite Things [Rec. 21OCT60; Rel MAR61. Note: My Favourite Things wasn’t intended to be a Christmas song when initially introduced to the public in 1959. Rather, as I understand the story, it was an on-the-spot marketing / A&R decision to add it to Jack Jones' 1964 Christmas LP (based both on some of the lyrical content and to help plug the forthcoming musical). Of course, what this means is that Trane did not recorded it as an off-season Christmas song.]
 
You could add many Carpenters compilations to the list since most of them contain “Merry Christmas, Darling.”
 
Starting right here at "home", we've got the Baja Marimba Band doing "Partridge In A Pear Tree" and placing it on the animal-themed FOR ANIMALS ONLY.
 
Another that has become a holiday staple is Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" from his dual album, THE INNOCENT AGE.
 
"Little Drummer Boy" on J&K's Betwixt & Between. (In the most bizarre arrangement I've ever heard.)

And Wes Montgomery doing "Greensleeves" on one of his albums also. (Although I don't know if it started life as an Xmas song.)
 
Another that has become ubiquitous at Christmas time is "River" by Joni Mitchell and found on her BLUE album.
 
The Modern Jazz Quartet-Plastic Dreams.
“Variations on a Christmas Theme,” and “England’s Carol” (God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman).
 
Jim Croce did "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way" on his LIFE AND TIMES album. In some quarters it gets play at Christmas time.
 
One we’ve been talking about here this fall is: Little Thing, by ABBA on the new Voyage album.
Chris Rea, Driving Home For Christmas, album New Light Through Old Windows
great song.
The Cowsills, Christmastime, album Global. Beautiful waltz
and honorable mention to Firefall for Christmas In Love. One of my favorite Christmas songs of all time. Only released as a b side to one of their singles. It was finally released on a couple of various artists Christmas Radio compilations in the late 90’s. It may be hard to find one.
The Korgis, Something About the Korgis, Wish You A Merry Xmas.
 
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Peter, Paul, & Mary's album MOVING contains the song "A 'Soalin", which is a Christmas-themed song.
 
"Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown" by John Barry, vocal by Nina from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" film and soundtrack
 
I wonder if that's the same version Jimmy Smith used in his Christmas Cookin' album...
 
JOv2 said:
  • Santa Claus is Coming to Town — Bill Evans / The Solo Sessions, Vol. 2 [Rec. 10JAN63; Rel. 1992]
Click to expand...
Evans also performed it on Trio '64, as the album was produced from the session recorded on December 18, 1963.
 
I'd add Kenny Loggins' "Celebrate Me Home" (from the album of the same name) to the list. It gets a pretty fair amount of radio play around the holidays on our local stations, even if it's not a traditional holiday or Christmas song per se, and it's one of those few songs that, much like the Carpenters' Christmas records, doesn't wear on me in the slightest during the holiday season, no matter how many times I might hear it. It's just got a warmth to it that's missing from so many modern-day Christmas records.
Another - albeit much, much more obscure - Christmas song I like that's found on an otherwise non-seasonal release is "She Won't Be Home" by Erasure, which can be found on their stopgap EP Crackers International, their follow-up to their American breakthrough The Innocents. It's sad, mind you, but it's so, so pretty.

And I agree with GDB2LV's comment above that Chris Rea's "Driving Home for Christmas" is a fabulous holiday song. Easily one of the most wildly underrated Christmas records around. (But Rea himself is wildly underrated in general. He's just had the one hit here on American shores ("Fool (If You Think It's Over)"), but I really enjoy his music.) I never hear it on the holiday stations near me, but every once in a rare while, I might hear it in a store while doing my Christmas shopping, and it never fails to warm my heart when I do.

I'm curious to see if Abba's "Little Things" can catch on as a new holiday staple. Ever since Billboard went back to including holiday titles on the Hot 100 a few years back, it seems like it's always the same holiday songs that keep returning to the Top 40, and it'd be nice to see some fresh ones in there (whether new songs like "Little Things" or older holiday titles that have been underappreciated). To this day, "The Chipmunk Song" and Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" remain the only holiday songs to reach Number One (and the latter just surpassed Chubby Checker's record for "The Twist" to become the only record to ever reach Number One on three entirely separate occasions), and I feel like that list should be longer, especially what with the abundance of great holiday songs out there.
 
Another song that isn't a Christmas song but has come to be regarded as one, is "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. In the original play, the song is sung to Maria by the Mother Abbess to calm her fears about leaving the Abbey; and in the movie, the song is performed in the middle of a summer rainstorm, to calm the kids' fears of the lightning and thunder. But the lyrical mention of things like mittens, snowflakes, sleigh bells, and "packages tied up with strings" has made a couple of generations regard it as a Christmas song.

Jack Jones was the first to put it on a Christmas album, and it was done at the request of a song promoter, who was hoping to get Jones to record a tune from The Sound of Music to help promote the film. Jones insisted it was not a Christmas song, but the promoter had the idea of just adding some sleigh-bells into the background, and a new Christmas song was born.

Herb Alpert's version of "My Favorite Things" is the only recording of it to make the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It reached #45.

Also: Elton John has a song called "Cold As Christmas" on his Too Low For Zero album. The song has nothing to do with Christmas, though.
 
Mike Blakesley said:
Elton John has a song called "Cold As Christmas" on his Too Low For Zero album. The song has nothing to do with Christmas, though.
Click to expand...

That could be another whole thread category - songs that mention Christmas but are never considered Christmas/seasonal songs. A Carpenters example is "Those Good Old Dreams" - with the lyrics "Like a child's eyes on a Christmas night,..." - it'll never be in anyone's Christmas list.
 
"Cold As Christmas" may technically have nothing to do with Christmas, but that is a great, great song. Definitely my favorite Eighties song of his to not get issued as a single. [I was actually surprised that they didn't work a snippet of that into his new single with Dua Lipa, "Cold Heart." The line "cold as Christmas in the middle of the year" would have made a much more logical and fitting sample to stick in the background of the closing moments of the record than that sample from "Where's the Shoorah?". The same record samples "Kiss the Bride," which hails from the same album as "Cold As Christmas," so I'm kinda amazed the idea never occurred to them.]

Breathe's "Does She Love That Man?" is another one's not a Christmas/seasonal song per se but takes place at Christmas (" .... through a winter that's so bitterly cold / Christmas is coming / All the stores are wrapped in the neon glow / But I don't feel festive ...") and I consequently usually end up playing it at some point during the holiday months.
 
Carly Simon's "The Night Before Christmas" was on a soundtrack for the movie "This Is My Life." This gets airplay most every year here.
Roberta Flack recorded a song called "The 25th Of Last December" on her 1977 release Blue Lights In The Basement. It is not a Christmas song but did get airplay for a few years at Christmas on one AM station.
 
Bermuda singer Heather Nova did "Always Christmas" (from 2008 "The Jasmine Flower") which is an CD import.
 
Alabama recorded “Angels Among Us” for their non-seasonal album ‘Cheap Seats’, and while the song isn’t about Christmas, it’s become associated with Christmas (and it was released as a single in December 1993).

Also the Carpenters have released a number of Christmas tracks on non-seasonal compilations (MCD, SCICTT, Christmas Song, White Christmas, Ave Maria).

in 1968, Capitol strangely issued “Frosty The Snowman” ‘The Best of the Beach Boys Volume 3.’; this followed the inclusion of ‘Little Saint Nick’ on Volume 2 in 1967. It’s strange because, as far as I know, Frosty wasn’t issued as a single, whereas “The Man With All The Toys” was a Christmas single in 1964.

In 1991, Michael Bolton issued ‘White Christmas’ on his “Timeless” (Volume 1) album.
 
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