Rolling Stone lists Springsteen’s cover of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” as one of the greatest rock Christmas songs of all time. Springsteen’s link to the song goes back several decades. Fans and radio stations played Springsteen’s version before it was officially released when a live 1975 Long Island recording finally appeared on the B-Side to “My Hometown” in 1985.
Earlier this month on December 4, 2012, Bruce Springsteen pulled out his classic cover of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and it was captured in a good quality recording. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice this year, you cannot help but smiling at this performance. [December 2013 Update: The December 4, 2012 performance is no longer available on a high-quality video, so below is a performance from 2007.]
For other videos from this December 4 show, check out Blogness on the Edge of Town.
What is your favorite version of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Though I’ve loved Bruce since the early 1980’s, I didn’t get to see him until the Rising tour. My brother surprised me with tickets to the December show in Albany, where “Santa Claus” made an appearance. It was a great first show. The next summer we went to a show at Giants stadium (subject of a new Bruce favorite “wrecking ball”) we ran into a very old friend. Upon hearing that Albany in December was my first show, he blurted out, “You got Santa Claus!”. As a decades long tour-head, he knew how rare it was that I got to hear it. I didn’t realize how lucky I was!
That’s cool. Although I’ve seen Springsteen several times, I think the concerts have always been in the summer, so I’ve never heard “Santa Claus” live. In the pre-Internet days when the song was only a B-side I didn’t have, it was just a treat to hear it on the radio. Even though I now have the song on my iPod and you can see it on YouTube, I still get a kick when it pops up somewhere unexpectedly. Happy holidays!