I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

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I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Jimmy Boyd
publication November 1952
length 2:25
Genre (s) pop
Author (s) Tommie Connor
Label Columbia Records
Cover versions
1952 Molly Bee
1952 Spike Jones
1953 Beverley Sisters
1953 Billy Cotton
1963 The Ronettes
1970 The Jackson 5
1994 John Prine

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus is a Christmas song written by Tommie Connor and sung by 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd , which was first released as a single in late November 1952. The B-side contained the song Thumbelina , a cover version of the song of the same name by Frank Loesser from the film musical Hans Christian Andersen . According to the Allmusic database , records in the tens of millions have been sold since they were first released. According to Time magazine , the song made Boyd one of the biggest names in the music business overnight (“ something of an overnight national musical figure ”).

In I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, a child sneaks down the stairs on Christmas Eve and sees their mother and Santa Claus kissing.

Emergence

There are different ways of creating the song. According to Stories behind the greatest hits of Christmas , Connor was asked by a humorous advertisement for the Neiman Marcus department store chain in a magazine what would children think if they saw their mother and father dressed as Santa Claus kiss? For Connor it was the perfect mix of tradition, misunderstanding and naughtiness. In order not to make I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus too wicked, he decided to have a child as a narrator.

Front page The New Yorker
Perry Barlow , December 23, 1939

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

According to other sources, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was commissioned by the department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue to promote their annual Christmas card . In 1952, it shows a child who, being held in his arms by Santa Claus, watches in horror as he kisses the child's mother. The illustration of the card comes from Perry Barlow (1892–1977) and was used as the cover for The New Yorker magazine on December 23, 1939 .

Columbia Records' CEO Mitch Miller was convinced of the demo recording and selected 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd as singer, who was successful with Columbia with God's Little Candles in the same year . Miller wanted a raw, almost unprofessional sound, so not much time was put into post-processing the song. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was recorded on July 15, 1952 in Los Angeles and accompanied by Norman Luboff .

Publication and controversy

In late November 1952 I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was released as a 7-inch single (with 45 revolutions per minute) on Columbia Records with the catalog number Columbia MJV 4-152 (1953: Columbia MJV 152). The song was described in Newsweek as the first Christmas hit since Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer .

In the first week of its release, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was condemned as immoral by the Archdiocese of Boston . The song portrays Nicholas of Myra as an adulterer and the connection between sex and Christmas is bad news for children. Other groups from the Protestant and Catholic churches joined the protest. As a result, the song was banned in some US cities - including Boston . Also WSAZ-TV and the associated radio stations from West Virginia banned the song. To prevent a further boycott of the song, Boyd was flown from the label to Boston to explain the point of the song to the Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cushing . The song does not describe an affair, but only a kiss between a married couple who is misunderstood by the child. The church then withdrew the objections.

successes

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was at the top of the Billboard charts for two weeks (December 27, 1952 to January 9, 1953 ) . In addition, Boyd was awarded a gold record for the single .

A year later the song became internationally known. In Great Britain, the single was in the UK Top 12 for six weeks from November 1953 and reached number 3. In Australia, it topped the ARIA charts for three weeks (December 12, 1953 to January 1, 1954 ).

In addition, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus broke Columbia's sales records: 248,000 records were sold in one day, 700,000 after ten days and over a million by Christmas 1952.

At the time, it was common practice to count the number of records sold by a song across all artists, and this resulted in the cash box charts . The song topped the cashbox charts for two weeks (January 10-16 , 1953 ). Two million records were sold within ten weeks - with Boyd's single accounting for half of them - and between 2.5 and three million after a year.

Jimmy Boyd himself was surprised by the success, he liked the song, but he couldn't imagine anyone would buy it.

Cover versions

When the success of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was foreseeable, cover versions of competing labels were created. In the same year, songs by RCA Victor with Spike Jones (number 4 on the Billboard charts), by Capitol Records with Molly Bee (number 19 on the Billboard charts) and by MGM Records with Betty Clark were released. At Christmas 1953, two cover versions of Boyd's hit were in the British Top 12: Beverly Sisters (6th place) and Billy Cotton (11th place).

In 1963, the girl group The Ronettes recorded the song for Phil Spector's Christmas LP, and The Jackson 5 released their version of the title on the Jackson 5 Christmas Album in 1970 . Australia was the only country where it was released as a single; it received a gold record there.

There were other cover versions by the following artists:

At least 26 jazz versions were published: as early as December 1952, Freddie Kohlman recorded the title. Jimmy McGriff , Bill Evans and Oliver Lake I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus took on their Christmas jazz records .

Amy Winehouse performed a more soulful version of the song during a television show. This recording was released on a Dutch sampler in 2008 and is the only Christmas carol in the estate of Amy Winehouse.

In 2015, the Franco-German Ska and Reggae artist Dr. Ring-Ding a Jive / Ska version on the album "Once A Year".

Chart placements

Version of The Jackson Five

year Charts
SwitzerlandSwitzerland CH
2019/20 100
(1 week)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jimmy Boyd - I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus / Thumbelina. Discogs , accessed December 19, 2013 .
  2. ^ Valerie J. Nelson: Jimmy Boyd, 1939-2009: Sang "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". Chicago Tribune, March 11, 2009, accessed December 17, 2013 .
  3. ↑ a b c Time (Ed.): Holy Night, 1952 . tape 60 , no. 23 . Time Inc. , December 15, 1952, ISSN  0040-781X ( online version ).
  4. ↑ a b c d e Ace Collins: Stories behind the greatest hits of Christmas . Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2010, ISBN 978-0-310-32795-0 , chap. 16 , p. 91–95 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ MA Farber: Perry Barlow, 85, a Caroonist on The New Yorker for 30 Years. The New York Times Biographical Service, December 28, 1977; accessed December 19, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Tracy J. Prince: 1939 Mommy is Kissing Santa for the cover. Pinterest , accessed December 19, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Sandra Roche: 10 of the worst christmas songs ever. Newstalk, December 3, 2012, accessed December 19, 2013 .
  8. ^ For the week of September 2, 2013. Ask Mr. Music Jerry Osborne. Retrieved December 19, 2013 .
  9. ↑ That 'One Record' . In: Newsweek . tape 40 . Newsweek, 1952, p. 86 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  10. ↑ Robert Fontenot: The Top 40 Christmas Oldies Songs - # 35. Retrieved December 19, 2013 .
  11. ^ Wallace J. Williamson III .: Class Notes . 43. In: Princeton Alumni Weekly . tape 53 , no. 12 , Jan 16, 1953, Wallace J. Williamson III., Pp. 25 , col. 2 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ^ Joseph F. Laredo: Perry Como - Greatest Christmas Songs. Compilation Liner Notes. (No longer available online.) Kokoma.ca, archived from the original on January 20, 2015 ; Retrieved December 19, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kokomo.ca
  13. ↑ a b c Steve Hawtin: Song title 460 - I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. Tsort, December 5, 2013, accessed December 19, 2013 .
  14. ^ A b Don Tyler: Music of the postwar era . Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-34191-5 , pp. 47 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ^ Adrian Grant: Michael Jackson: a visual documentary 1958-2009 . Official tribute edition. Omnibus Press, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-85712-212-4 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  16. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, December 24, 2013)
  17. ^ Amy Winehouse's obituary on the Stubby's House of Christmas website, June 23, 2011