The Beach Boys' Christmas Album is the seventh studio album by The Beach Boys, released in 1964. A Christmas album, it features five original songs written by Brian Wilson (and, for the first three, Mike Love), while the rest of the album consists of covers.
The first half of the album consists of up-tempo Christmas-themed rock songs that appealed to younger audiences in 1964, while the second half features more traditional Christmas songs performed in a more traditional manner, with a full orchestra. The album was created more or less directly as a response to Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records, released a year earlier.
Since its release, this album has gone on to become one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time, and a number of its tracks have become seasonal staples. In the late '70s, the Beach Boys recorded a follow-up album called Merry Christmas from The Beach Boys, but it got rejected by their record label.
Tracklist:
Side One
- "Little Saint Nick" (1:59)
- "The Man with All the Toys" (1:32)
- "Santa's Beard" (1:59)
- "Merry Christmas, Baby" (2:22)
- "Christmas Day" (1:35)
- "Frosty the Snowman" (1:54)
Side Two
- "We Three Kings of Orient Are" (4:03)
- "Blue Christmas" (3:09)
- "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" (2:20)
- "White Christmas" (2:29)
- "I'll Be Home for Christmas" (2:44)
- "Auld Lang Syne" (1:19)
Principal Members:
- Al Jardine - guitar, backing and lead vocals
- Mike Love - lead vocals
- Brian Wilson - lead vocals, bass, piano, organ
- Carl Wilson - guitar, backing and co-lead vocals
- Dennis Wilson - drums, backing and co-lead vocals
Little Saint Tropes:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable:
- "The Man with All the Toys"And he saw through the WIN-(pause)-dow a sight
- "Santa's Beard"I took my brother to the DEE-partment store
- "The Man with All the Toys"
- Animate Inanimate Object: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who comes alive at Christmas night.
- Christmas Songs: This album, released at the height of the band's popularity in 1964, was a huge success, featuring one side of original compositions (including the classic hit "Little Saint Nick") and a side of Christmas standards performed In the Style of Brian's idols The Four Freshmen (complete with orchestral arrangements by that group's arranger, Dick Reynolds). Probably the most popular "rock and roll" Christmas album not recorded by Elvis or Phil Spector.
- "Auld Lang Syne" is an outlier since it's a traditional song for New Year's Eve.
- Concept Album: In the sense that all tracks (except maybe "Auld Lang Syne") are about Christmas. But, of course, "Auld Lang Syne" is typically sang at New Year, making it the fitting album closer.
- Continuity Nod: "Little Saint Nick" is essentially an updated "Little Deuce Coupe", only as a Christmas song.
- Cover Album: The entire second half of the album consists of traditional Christmas covers, as is "Frosty the Snowman".
- Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Unsurprisingly, all of this album's songs allude to it.
- In the Style of: The second half of this album is done in the style of The Four Freshmen.
- Mall Santa: "Santa's Beard" is about the singer's little brother meeting one of these. Doubtful that he's the real Santa Claus, once he gets on his lap he pulls his pillow out of his shirt and yanks his beard right off his chin. Having realized that he's not the real deal, he then draws the conclusion that he's "just helping the real Santa Claus".
- Miniscule Rocking: On side 1, only "Merry Christmas, Baby" exceeds two minutes, with "Christmas Day" and "The Man with All the Toys" hovering around 90 seconds. The album closer "Auld Lang Syne" is even shorter.
- New Sound Album: Technically, as it is a Christmas album, with half of the album done in a traditional style.
- One-Man Song: "Little Saint Nick", "The Man with All The Toys" and "Frosty the Snowman".
- Pacifism: "Auld Lang Syne", the classic plea for universal forgiveness and peace is the album closer.
- Santa Claus: "The Man with All the Toys", "Santa's Beard", and "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" are about him.
- Self-Parody: "Little Saint Nick" counts, since it's done in the manner of a Car Song like the group was famous for at the time, only it's about Santa's sleigh.
- Step Up to the Microphone: Al Jardine sings lead vocals on "Christmas Day", as well as co-lead vocals on "Auld Lang Syne". The former is the first Beach Boys song ever to feature Jardine on lead vocals.
- Carl and Dennis Wilson each sing co-lead vocals on "Auld Lang Syne", with the latter providing spoken-word vocals on the track.
- Title Drop: All the songs have one in the lyrics, but "Santa's Beard" is unusual because the drop is in the backing vocal counterpoints in the chorus ("I hope he doesn't pull Santa's beard" and "he shouldn't have pulled Santa's beard") rather than the main lyrics. If you didn't know the title
you might guess it's called "I Wanna See Santa Claus" or "The Real, Real Santa".
