Brenda Lee Reveals the Strange Inspiration Behind “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
It’s not really the holiday season until you’ve heard Brenda Lee‘s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” But in the new PBS American Masters documentary Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around, the singer reveals that the 1958 Christmas classic wasn’t originally inspired by the holiday — in fact, the song has its roots on the beach. And it was penned by songwriter Johnny Marks, who was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas.
“I recorded ‘Rockin” when I was 12,” Lee, 80, recalls in the documentary. “I said, ‘Johnny, you don’t even believe in Christmas,’ and I said, ‘Tell me how you wrote ‘Rockin’?’
“He said, ‘I was laying on the beach in New York, and pine trees were over to this side.’ And then he said, ‘I kind of went to sleep to take a little nap, and I woke up and I was facing the pine trees, and they were just kind of swinging like this [moves her hands back and forth].’ And he thought, ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.’ And there it was.”
That summertime jolt of inspiration turned into one of our most enduring modern Christmas tunes — although the song didn’t reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 until 2023! Lee finally shot a music video for the song in November 2023, and the song topped the charts that December.
The song set multiple records: with 65 years between its release and it taking the top spot, it represented the longest time between a song’s release and it hitting the top of the charts. And at 79, Lee became the oldest artist to ever have a number one hit.
Lee had her first Billboard number one hit in 1960, with “I’m Sorry,” and had nine consecutive top 10 hits from 1960 until 1962.
Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around will be available for streaming on the PBS website until Jan. 14, 2025, and will air on PBS on Dec. 20 at 4am ET.
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November/December 2024
Saddle up for some Holiday Cowboy fun with movies, music and your fav Christmas episodes of classic Westerns.
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