Song of the Day 12/16: Vince Vance & the Valiants, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”
Wait, wait, don’t go! This isn’t what you think it is!
It’s not the Mariah Carey hit, the one that plays in stores so often that retail workers voted it their most hated Christmas song. This is an entirely different piece of music!
Yes, it’s got the same title, and the same basic premise, listing all the things the singer doesn’t need before getting around to the title line. But Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone) had the idea first, and even filed a lawsuit over it once Carey’s composition became a seasonal standard. The suit was not only tossed out of court for lack of evidence, Vance even had to pay some of Carey’s legal fees.
But while he’s got no legal case for plagiarism, he might have grounds for claiming influence. Consider: Carey’s enormous hit came out in 1994. Vance wrote his very small hit in 1989, but it was the 1993 holiday season when airplay beyond his base in Dallas let it sneak onto the lower reaches of Billboard’s country chart. So the year after Vance’s song gained wider exposure, Mariah Carey just happened to have an idea for a Christmas song with the same title and subject matter? Yeah, right. Total coincidence.
Vance’s recording is credited to him and the band, but it all hangs on a powerhouse vocal from uncredited singer Lisa Layne, who toured with the Valiants for five years in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Unlike Carey’s upbeat tune, which makes it sound as if she’s already opened the gift she’s singing about, Vance’s treats “you” as someone who’s not there, so Layne delivers it more like a torch song. (The video features a lip-synching actress rather than Layne).
The tune has gotten more airplay in recent years, maybe because Kelly Clarkson recorded it as a single in 2020 and included it on her Christmas album the next year.
Personally, I think Leann Rimes covered it best with this live acoustic version.
