Darlene Love’s ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ Came off Shelves After a National Tragedy and Took Years to Become a Classic
Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is one of the most famous Christmas songs in music history. However, it wasn’t always that way. The now-famous tune had the misfortune of coming out on the same day as a national tragedy and fell into obscurity for a while.
Darlene Love said the writers of ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ were ‘leery’ of putting out a brand new Christmas song
During a 2019 interview on the Music Is My Life Podcast, Love explained that she loved “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” when she first heard it over the phone. However, the writers were apprehensive about it.
“I heard it when we were recording the Christmas album [Phil Spector’s ‘A Christmas Gift For You’], and then Ellie [Greenwich] and Jeff [Barry] had written this song, and they were a little leery of putting out a brand new Christmas song. It wasn’t like ‘Marshmallow World’ or ‘Silent Night,’ any of those,” she said.
“This was brand spanking new, and I was like, ‘I don’t know about doing a song that’s not already Christmas. But Phil was determined. He said it’s a great song, you got to hear it, and they actually played the song for me over the phone. From New York. It wasn’t nothing on it; it was just a demo. Ellie singing and Jeff playing.
“So, it was a demo, so you really couldn’t feel what it was all about. But once I heard the song, I said, ‘Wow, this is great.’ I thought it from the time I heard it, and I really heard it good before I recorded it, I thought it was going to be a great song… That song means something to everybody that hears it.”
Love said it was “joy, joy, joy” recording “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” She also said she gets goosebumps when she hears it and wishes she could sing it all year round. However, her and the band’s hard work was temporarily delayed.
‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ was released on the same day of a national tragedy
According to Parade, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” had the “unfortunate fate” of being released on the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Out of respect for the president, the single and the album were temporarily pulled from stores.
On the Music Is My Life Podcast, Love said the record was delayed a whole year. “Phil didn’t put it out until next Christmas,” she said. “That was the year he was assassinated. Everybody was in a slump, and nobody wanted to be joyful, or be put in a good mood, so Phil just decided to wait until the following year to put it out.
“We had to wait on it, and I made Phil give me a copy of it, the whole record. So, he gave me a copy of it, and promised that I wouldn’t let anybody hear it… I couldn’t wait to have that record put out.”
According to Parade, the record “left no mark until 1972, when the full album started to gain traction through a reissue.” The song didn’t really take off until the 1980s when Love started performing it on Late Night with David Letterman.
Love began performing the Christmas song annually on ‘David Letterman’
Starting in 1986, Love began performing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Late Night with David Letterman around the holiday annually. The tradition lasted until Christmas 2014, five months before Letterman retired in May.
Love performed the Christmas tune on Letterman 28 times. In 2015, she began performing it on The View.
Many artists have covered the song, including Jon Bon Jovi, Death Cab for Cutie, Mariah Carey, KT Tunstall, Smash Mouth, and The Offspring. Cher, who also sang backup on Love’s version, covered it too.
The most popular cover is U2’s. They recorded their version on the 1987 Special Olympics benefit album A Very Special Christmas. Love contributed backup vocals on the track.
Love told SongFacts that she’s never grown sick of singing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” because she only started performing it in the 1980s. So, maybe the single and record’s delay was a good thing.
