Song of the Day 12/16: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Christmas All Over Again”
“A Very Special Christmas,” the 1987 charity LP conceived by producer Jimmy Iovine as a memorial to his father, succeeded beyond all expectations. Inspired in part by Phil Spector’s legendary holiday LP, Iovine tapped people he had worked with, starting with Bruce Springsteen, to donate songs for the album, and produced several tracks himself. It took him a year of arm-twisting and some extraordinary efforts – for example, Iovine flew to Glasgow just to record U2 playing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” during a sound check.
His wife suggested the proceeds go to the organization she volunteered with, a then-almost-unknown charity called the Special Olympics, and the album is one reason it’s pretty well known now. The LP has sold more than 4 million copies, and along with its many sequels has raised over $100 million for its cause.
The first of those sequels, “A Very Special Christmas 2,” came out in 1992, and this Tom Petty original was its lead track. In a way Petty, who was still working with fellow Jeff Lynne at the time, owes the song to their Traveling Wilburys bandmate, George Harrison.
The funny thing is I wrote the song on a ukelele. George Harrison had come by and given me a ukelele and spent a whole afternoon teaching me the chords. The ukelele is a really cool instrument, even though it doesn’t have that image. I took the ukelele with me to my house in Florida in the middle of summer and wrote this Christmas song.
Lynne took his production cues from Spector, building his wall of sound from four acoustic guitars, two basses, a harp and a harpsichord, plus a mammoth percussion section. Lynne sang background vocals and played the bass and bells himself, and you can hear him at the end of the record when Petty is reciting his wish list. When he gets to “a Chuck Berry songbook,” Lynne adds, “I’ll have one of them.”
