"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee

This year "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, sixty-five years after it was first released. Not only did it become Miss Lee's third no. 1 single (after "I'm Sorry" and "I Want to Be Wanted), but it made her the oldest person to hit no. 1 on the Hot 100 (Brenda Lee is 78 years old). Brenda Lee also holds the record for the longest gap between no. 1 singles (63 years, one month and two weeks) and the longest gap between a song's release and it topping the Billboard Hot 100. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" is also only the third Christmas song to ever hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (for those who are wondering, "White Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were released well before the Hot 100 existed).

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was written by Johnny Marks, best known for having written the second most successful Christmas song of all time, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (it is second only to "White Christmas"). Beyond "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Johnny Marks later adapted the poem "Christmas Bells" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," a hit for Bing Crosby in 1956. He later wrote the holiday standards "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Silver and Gold" for the classic Christmas TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in which all of the songs were written by Johnny Marks.

Johnny Marks chose Brenda Lee to record "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," although she does not know why. At the time she was only 13 years old and had not yet had any real recording success. It was first released on November 24 1958, but it did not chart. It was released again in 1959, although once more it did not chart. In the meantime, Brenda Lee's career had started to to take off. In 1959 she reached no. 4 with the song "Sweet Nothin's." In 1960 she hit no. 6 with "That All You Gotta Do," no. 1 with "I'm Sorry," no. 1 with "I Want to Be Wanted." When "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was re-released in 1960, then, it finally became it hit. It reached no. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1965 it peaked at no. 3 on the chart. It has remained popular ever since.

As mentioned above, all of the songs in the Christmas special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were written by Johnny Marks. This includes an instrumental version of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." A version of the song also appears in the Rankin/Bass feature film Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979). Brenda Lee's original version was also included in the movie Home Alone (1990). The original version has been used on several TV shows, as well as movies from Reindeer Games (2000) to Krampus (2015) to A Christmas Story Christmas (2022). Over the years several artists have covered "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," including the Partridge Family, Ronnie Spector & Darlene Love,  Kim Wilde and Mel Smith, Kacey Musgraves and Camila Cabello, and yet others.

This year Brenda Lee filmed a music video for "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," in which she lip syncs to her original version of the song, just in time for the 65th anniversary of the song's release. This perhaps explains why the perennial Christmas favourite finally hit no. 1, although I have to point out it has hit no. 2 every year since 2019. For those who would like to see it, here it is.