Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (sometimes with Coming changed to Comin') is a Christmas song. It was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, and was first sung on Eddie Cantor's radio show in November 1934.It became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and over 400,000 copies sold by Christmas.

Recordings

The earliest known recorded version of the song was performed by George Hall and the Hotel Taft Orchestra (featuring Sonny Schuyler on vocals) in 1934. It was mostly an instrumental except for a 35-second vocal by Schuyler. The version shown in the Variety charts of December 1934 was Harry Reser featuring Tom Stacks on vocal. The song was an obvious sheet music hit, reaching #1. Surprisingly, no 1934 version achieved exceptional record sales. The song was also recorded on September 26 1935, by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra [http://www.answers.com/topic/1928-1935] . Many believe that Benny Goodman was the first to record the song, but in 1935 Goodman actually recorded the Johnny Mercer tune, "Santa Claus Came In The Spring." Goodman never recorded "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

The song is a traditional standard at Christmas time, and has been covered by numerous recording artists. In 1970 Rankin-Bass produced an hour-long animated television special based on the song, with narrator Fred Astaire telling the original story of Santa Claus. Artists that have made notable covers of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" include the following:
*The Carpenters
*Bianca Ryan
*Destiny's Child
*All 4 One
*Alvin and the Chipmunks
*Vanessa Amorosi
*Gene Autry
*Patricia Barber
*The Beach Boys
*David Benoit
*Tony Bennett
*Michael Bolton
*Boston Pops Orchestra
*Dave Brubeck
*The California Raisins
*Manhattan Transfer
*Mariah Carey
*Gnarkill (Alternative cover)
*Ray Charles
*The Cheetah Girls
*Richard Clayderman
*Rosemary Clooney
*Nat King Cole
*Perry Como
*Ray Conniff Singers
*Bucky Covington
*Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters
*The Crystals
*Neil Diamond
*Tommy Dorsey
*Hilary Duff
*Bill Evans
*Ella Fitzgerald
*Fourplay
*Girl Authority
*Vince Gill
*Natalie Grant
*Larry Groce on the album "Disney's Christmas Favourites".
*Hampton String Quartet
*Merle Haggard
*Woody Herman
*Chris Isaak and Stevie Nicks
*Burl Ives
*Alan Jackson
*The Jackson Five
*The Judds
*Peggy Lee
*Lynyrd Skynyrd
*The Manhattan Transfer
*Johnny Mathis
*Jimmy McGriff
*Mitch Miller and the Gang
*Michael Martin Murphy
*The Oak Ridge Boys
*Dolly Parton
*The Partridge Family
*The Pointer Sisters
*Alvino Rey with the King Sisters
*Emma Roberts
*Bootsy's Rubber Band
*Art Paul Schlosser did a parody called IRS is Coming to Town
*Frank Sinatra
*Frank Sinatra (in a duet with Cyndi Lauper)
*Slade
*Sugarcult
*Kate Smith
*Smothers Brothers
*Bruce Springsteen (two versions, one of which is a popular radio version)
*George Strait
*The Supremes
*James Taylor
*The Temptations
*Randy Travis
*Dave Valentin
*Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
*Lawrence Welk
*Wynonna
*Luis Miguel (sung in Spanish)
*CKY
*B2K
*Aerosmith (Sung on Disney's popular show Lizzie Mcguire)Mariah Carey recorded her version of the song for her holiday album "Merry Christmas" (1994), and in 2005 (see 2005 in music), a re-recording co-produced by Jermaine Dupri was included on the album's anniversary re-release and released as a CD single with the purchase of the 2005 DVD of the 1970s film "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town".

The Smothers Brothers' version, found on their album, "Think Ethnic!", is only twenty-five seconds long, and ends with Tom Smothers' singing, "Santa Claus is dead" instead of the title.

Trivia

There was a 1970's television special of the same name.

The lyrics of the song have been a source for jokes for years. A "Calvin and Hobbes" strip implied that if Santa "sees you when you're sleeping [and] knows when you're awake," he must be a "CIA spook." The movie "" has Santa reminding his elves to write "the list" carefully, because (following the song) he'll be "checking it twice".

In the Futureama episode XMas Story,there was a parordy of the song called "Santa Claus Is Gunning You Down" due to episode scripe where Santa turns evil.

References

* [http://www.kiwanis.org/magazine/1205mmaclause.asp Story of the song from the December 1956 issue of "The Kiwanis Magazine" (excerpted at kiwanis.org)]
* "Christmas in the Charts (1920 - 2004)" by Joel Whitburn. Copyright 2004 by Joel Whitburn.

ee also

*Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (TV special)