Darlene Love Said Leon Russell ‘Zoned’ out and ‘Played Himself off the Piano’ on ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’
Darlene Love had enormous fun recording her famous Christmas tune, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” However, she didn’t deliver one of the most festive tunes in music history alone. Other musicians, including Leon Russell, helped Love. However, Russell got a little carried away.
Darlene Love said the writers of ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ were ‘leery’ of making a new Christmas song
During a 2019 interview on the Music Is My Life Podcast, Love said she loved “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” when she first heard it over the phone. However, the writers were apprehensive about it.
“I heard it when we were recording the Christmas album [Phil Spector’s ‘A Christmas Gift For You‘], and then Ellie [Greenwich] and Jeff [Barry] had written this song, and they were a little leery of putting out a brand new Christmas song. It wasn’t like ‘Marshmallow World’ or ‘Silent Night,’ any of those,” she said.
“This was brand spanking new, and I was like, ‘I don’t know about doing a song that’s not already Christmas. But Phil was determined. He said it’s a great song, you got to hear it, and they actually played the song for me over the phone. From New York. It wasn’t nothing on it; it was just a demo. Ellie singing and Jeff playing.
“So, it was a demo, so you really couldn’t feel what it was all about. But once I heard the song, I said, ‘Wow, this is great.’ I thought it from the time I heard it, and I really heard it good before I recorded it, I thought it was going to be a great song… That song means something to everybody that hears it.”
Love said it was “joy, joy, joy” recording “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”
Love said Leon Russell was very enthusiastic on piano during the recording of ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’
On the Music Is My Life Podcast, Love explained that she and her band recorded “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” during a heat wave. However, it didn’t take long for them to get in the mood to sing Christmas songs because “they’re so joyful” and “full of life.”
“That song means something to everybody that hears it,” Love said. “You would have thought it was Christmas in that recording studio because every time, we would finish doing one of the songs, everybody would be like on a high. ‘Wow, that was great,’ and when we got ready to do ‘Christmas Baby,’ well, you want to talk about joy, joy, joy and then think about that song was recorded over 50 years ago.”
Love said she remembers the recording process of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” better than any other song she’s recorded. “We all learned it at the same time,” she said. “The musicians had the-the arranger had arranged the song because we had to get it ready for the album, and Phil wanted to put the album out.
“He wanted to put it out in early October, November. So he was pressed to get all the songs done on that one. I remember it took hours to do it because Phil wanted it to be perfect. I remember the last take of that session. Leon Russell was on piano.
“I don’t know if you can really hear like I hear, how he’s playing that piano. The last take of the night, he was playing like he was playing a contralto, like it was some big orchestrated number. He was like zoned, he was gone.
“He played so much at the end of the record. Even when Phil said, ‘OK, take,’ everybody was still playing. They didn’t stop. Lenon, actually, I don’t know if he did it by accident, or he just was fooling around, but played himself off the piano. I kept saying, ‘Phil, that’s it. I don’t think we can do it no better than this.'”
That last take appeared on A Christmas Gift For You.
Love gets goosebumps listening to the Christmas song
The singer also said she gets goosebumps whenever she hears “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” Love wishes she could sing it all year round.
J. F. K.’s assassination delayed the Christmas single and album. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the festive tune started getting love, but Love thinks it was a good thing. If “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” became popular when Spector released it, Love would’ve had to perform that song for decades.
Decades later, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is one of music’s most covered Christmas songs.
