When producer Jimmy Iovine invited Tom Petty to contribute a track for the 1992 A Very Special Christmas 2 compilation—a charity album benefiting the Special Olympics—Petty agreed on one condition: the song had to be original. If he was going to create a holiday track, Petty wanted it to reflect the iconic Wall of Sound style made famous by Phil Spector on his 1963 album A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector, which featured the Crystals, the Ronettes, and Darlene Love.
“I didn’t want to do somebody else’s song,” Petty explained in the liner notes of the Heartbreakers’ 1995 compilation album Playback. “To me and Mike [Campbell], there’s only one Christmas album in the pop field, and that’s Phil Spector’s. That’s the one we could relate to—it really sounds like Christmas to me. So, we thought we’d do something like that: eighteen guys, cut it all live.”
The song, Christmas All Over Again, was produced by Petty, Iovine, Jeff Lynne, and Campbell. It was recorded at A&M Studios in Hollywood, California, with an 18-piece band assembled to recreate Spector’s lush, layered sound.
Interestingly, Petty’s writing process for the song didn’t involve his usual instruments like the guitar or piano. Instead, he composed it on a ukulele gifted to him by George Harrison.
“The funny thing is I wrote the song on a ukulele,” Petty shared. “George Harrison had come by and given me a ukulele, spending an entire afternoon teaching me the chords. The ukulele is a really cool instrument, even though it doesn’t have that image. I took it with me to my house in Florida in the middle of summer and wrote this Christmas song.”
Petty’s appreciation for the ukulele’s charm became part of the song’s unique story. “The ukulele is a really cool instrument, even though it doesn’t have that image,” he reiterated.
The track gained additional recognition when it was featured in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Over the years, Christmas All Over Again has been covered by artists like Jon Bon Jovi, Darlene Love, and the Goo Goo Dolls, further cementing its place as a modern holiday classic.
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