White Christmas
1942
Berlin's snowless Christmas song, the best-selling physical single ever pressed, and the sound of every soldier's homesickness.
★ 9.3
The Songs canon
Sourced and sung.
Every song chosen by hand, with the recording to play it.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Fairytale of New York
1987
Two years in the making, with MacColl finally singing the woman's part, and it still stalled at number two.
★ 7.7
All I Want For Christmas Is You
1994
Carey and Afanasieff wrote it fast in 1994 from Spector chords, and it reached number one twenty-five years later.
★ 7.7
The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)
1946
Tormé and Wells wrote it in a July heat wave, thinking cool, and Cole overruled Capitol about the strings.
★ 7.5
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Darlene Love)
1963 · From A Christmas Gift for You
Cut at Gold Star in 1963, a commercial flop, then Love sang it for Letterman nearly every December until 2014.
★ 6.8
Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
1971
Two years after Lennon and Ono's billboards declared the war over, Spector cut it with a Harlem children's choir.
★ 6.3
Blue Christmas
1968 · From Elvis' Christmas Album
Millie Kirkham's soprano wailing over the Jordanaires at Radio Recorders, 1957, with Scotty Moore answering every line.
★ 5.6
Santa BabyEartha Kitt
Santa Baby
1953
Recorded live with Henri René's orchestra in October 1953, and Kitt's purr makes every extravagant request land.
★ 5.4
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
1975
Cut live at C. W. Post College in 1975, shelved six years, then loosed on every December radio playlist since.
★ 4.7
Rudolph the Red-Nosed ReindeerGene Autry
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
1949
Recorded in June 1949 by a reluctant Autry, at his wife's urging, from a story written for a department store.
★ 4.4
Little Drummer Boy, Peace on Earth
1977
Bowie balked at the carol, so writers built the Peace on Earth counterpoint in an hour; Crosby died weeks later.
★ 4.3
Father ChristmasThe Kinks
Father Christmas
1977
Ray Davies cut it at Konk in 1977, a department store Santa mugged by kids who want jobs, not toys.
★ 4.2
Christmas in Hollis
1987 · From A Very Special Christmas
Nineteen eighty-seven, a Special Olympics benefit album, and Run-DMC turning Clarence Carter's Back Door Santa into a Queens carol.
★ 3.8
Wonderful Christmastime
1979
Recorded alone in Sussex in the summer of 1979, every instrument McCartney's own, and a UK number six by January.
★ 1.6
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa ClausThe Jackson 5
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
1970
Tommie Connor's 1952 novelty, recut by the Jacksons for Motown's Christmas album, and a Hot 100 hit in 2024.
★ 1.4
Thank God It's Christmas
1984
May and Taylor wrote it, Mercury sang it, and Queen waited until 2019 to give it a video.
★ 1.0
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Death Cab for Cutie)Death Cab for Cutie
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Death Cab for Cutie)
2004 · From Maybe This Christmas Tree
Barry, Greenwich and Spector wrote it for Darlene Love in 1963; this 2004 cover stayed off streaming for seventeen years.
★ 0.8