Song of the Day 12/14: Stevie Wonder, “Someday at Christmas”
Today we kick off Song of the Day’s 12 Days of Christmas Music with a song I’m hearing more this year than I have in a long time, and with good reason. “Someday at Christmas” was written by Motown staff writers Ron Miller and Bryan Wells, who were responsible for some of Wonder’s earlier hits, and released as a stand-alone single in 1966.
A few years earlier, songs preached peace on Earth with an eye on the nuclear menace, but 1966 was the year LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam. The hot war replaced the Cold War, reflected in lyrics like “Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys/Playing with bombs like kids play with toys” and “Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars/When we have found what life’s really worth/There’ll be peace on earth.”
Given Trump’s saber-rattling in the Caribbean and the ongoing carnage in Ukraine, such sentiments seem especially apt this year. That might be why I heard it a couple of times on the radio during a long drive the other day. It wasn’t a hit back in the day; Wonder’s single limped to No. 33 on the Adult R&B chart.
The song got wider exposure in 1970 when it appeared on the Jackson 5’s Christmas album. It wasn’t released as a single but made an impression thanks to the group’s 12-year-old lead singer.
The Temps and Diana Ross also released versions that year, but the tune was mostly overlooked until Pearl Jam revived it in 2004, during the Iraq War (and sold it in a cover that honored the Jackson 5). Scores of people have recorded it since.
