Christmas Rock

With the holiday season upon us all, there are a number of Christmas songs recorded by popular rock artists. Let's take a look at a few of those.
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Lennon and McCartney:

 While the Fab Four never recorded a Christmas tune collectively, let alone a Christmas "album," it is without a doubt, that John Lennon's 1971 smash hit, Happy Xmas (War is Over) and Macca's 1979 hit Wonderful Christmastime have become classic holiday staples not to mention covered multiple times. Lennon composed Happy Xmas while at an NYC extended stay with Yoko Ono and the song features the Harlem Community Choir on backing vocals and the children's choir. The song was also deemed a protest against the Vietnem War and built on the success of Lennon's signature post-Beatles song, Imagine some months earlier.

McCartney recorded Wonderful Christmastime in late 1979 after the Back to the Egg, the Wings' final record, sessions playing all the instruments.

Regarding the other "quieter" two, Harrison released Ding Dong, Ding Dong in late 1974, while Starr released an actual album, I Wanna be Santa Claus in 1999. Neither attracted as much attention as the other two Christmas songs of ex-Beatles.

Elton John

 After recording Yellow Brick Road, Elton John released a "leftover," Step into Christmas, as a single. Written by Elton John and Berne Taupin, the single was a Top 40 hit in Sweden, and a top 10 hit in the UK, where it was platinum for selling 600,000 copies. It was never released as a single in the US, but still gets rotation during the holidays.

Greg Lake/ELP

 Although I Believe in Father Christmas is labelled as a Christmas staple one too many times, it was never intended to be. The song was written as protest of the commercialization of Christmas and was also recorded by ELP in full, as well as by the Kinks.

On a side note - Father Christmas is the British Santa Claus, and as you can see in the photo below, he is a lot like our own Santa!
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Wham

 OK, I know, George Michael and Andrew Rigby are not ROCK. However, their 1984 Christmas smash hit, Last Christmas, whose melody was copied for Kool and the Gang's Joanna, is a true classic. It gets frequent rotation and did I mention that it was covered by Swifty in 2010?


The Boss

 Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band, recorded a popular version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town as a surprise at a 1978 concert. The song has become a hit and its arrangement has even been recycled in a few cover versions. Oh, and do look for the extended intro.

These here are a few non-traditional Christmas rockers. There are more traditional ones such as Here Comes Santa Claus as made famous by the King, but these are a few big ones. The list is also non-exhaustive.

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