"Happy
Xmas (War Is Over)" is a Christmas song released in 1971 as
a single by John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with
the Harlem Community Choir. It was the
seventh single release by John Lennon outside his work with the Beatles. The song reached number four in
the UK, where its release was delayed until November 1972 and has periodically
reemerged on the UK Singles Chart,
most notably after Lennon's murder in
December 1980, when it peaked at number two.
Also a protest song against the Vietnam War, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" has since become a Christmas standard, frequently recorded by other artists, appearing on compilation albums of seasonal music, and named in polls as a holiday favourite. In a UK-wide poll in December 2012, it was voted tenth on the ITV television special The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.
LYRICS
So this is
Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young
A very Merry
Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this
is Christmas (ooh)
For weak and for strong (ooh)
For rich and the poor ones (ooh)
The war is so long (ooh)
And so happy Christmas (war is over)
For black and for white (if you want it)
For yellow and red ones (war is over)
Let's stop all the fight (now)
A very Merry
Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this
is Christmas (ooh)
And what have we done (ooh)
Another year over (ooh)
And a new one just begun (ooh)
And so happy Christmas (war is over)
We hope you have fun (if you want it)
The near and the dear ones (war is over)
The old and the young (now)
A very Merry
Christmas
(And a Happy New Year) Ooh, oh
(Let's hope it's a good one) It' a good, it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas (war is over)
And what have we done (if you want it)
Another year over (war is over)
And a new one just begun (now)
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/john-lennon/happy-xmas-war-is-over
Songfacts®:
·
This
is a very unusual Christmas song. Instead of evoking sleigh bells and
mistletoe, it asks us to think about those who live in fear, and collectively
bring about the end of war. The call to action is the refrain "war is
over, if you want it."
It's an esoteric but not unfounded concept that John Lennon and Yoko Ono also
put forth in "Imagine": If enough people want something
to happen, it will. So the idea was to get us to actively desire peace, which
could bring about the end of war.
·
John
Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote this in their New York City hotel room and recorded
it during the evening of October 28 and into the morning of the 29th, 1971, at
the Record Plant in New York. It was released in the US for Christmas, but didn't
chart. The next year, it was released in the UK, where it did much better,
charting at #4. Eventually, the song became a Christmas classic in America, but
it took a while.
·
John
and Yoko spent a lot of time in the late '60s and early '70s working to promote
peace. In 1969, they put up billboards in major
cities around the world that
said, "War is over! (If you want it)." Two years later this slogan
became the basis for this song when Lennon decided to make a Christmas record
with an anti-war message. John also claimed another inspiration for writing the
song: he said he was "sick of 'White Christmas.'"
·
The
children's voices are the Harlem Community Choir, who were brought in to sing
on this track. They are credited on the single along with Yoko and The Plastic
Ono Band.
·
Lennon
and Ono produced this with the help of Phil Spector. Spector had worked on some
of the later Beatles songs and also produced Lennon's "Instant Karma." It was not Spector's first foray
into Christmas music: he and his famous session stars (including a 17-year-old
Cher) spent six weeks in the summer of 1963 putting together A
Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, featuring artists like The
Ronettes and Darlene
Love. Unfortunately,
the album was released on November 22, 1963, which was the same day US
president John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The album sold poorly as America
was focused on news of the killing.
·
·
This
was originally released on clear green vinyl with Yoko Ono's "Listen, The
Snow Is Falling" as the B-side.
·
At
the beginning of the song, two whispers can be heard. Yoko whispers:
"Happy Christmas, Kyoko" (Kyoko Chan Cox is Yoko's daughter with
Anthony Cox) and John whispers: "Happy Christmas, Julian" (John's son
with Cynthia). >>
·
This
being a Phil Spector production, four guitarists were brought in to play
acoustic guitars: Hugh McCracken (who had recently played on the Paul McCartney
album Ram), Chris Osbourne, Stu Scharf and Teddy Irwin. According
to Richard Williams, who was reporting on the session for Uncut,
when Lennon taught them the song, he asked them to "pretend it's
Christmas." When one of the guitarists said he was Jewish, John told him,
"Well, pretend it's your birthday then."
As for the other personnel, Jim Keltner played drums and sleigh bells, Nicky
Hopkins played chimes and glockenspiel. Keltner and Hopkins were part of
Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, and a third member, Klaus Voorman, was supposed to
play bass on this track, but got stuck on a flight from Germany. One of the
guitarists brought in for the session covered the bass - which one nobody seems
to remember.
·
John
Lennon was shot and killed less than three weeks before Christmas in 1980. The
song was re-released in the UK on December 20 of that year, reaching #2 (held
off the top spot by "There's No One Quite Like Grandma" by St.
Winifred's School Choir). It made the UK Top 40 again in 1981 (#28), 2003 (#32)
and 2007 (#40). Also in 2003, a version sung by the finalists of the singing
competition Pop Idol reached #5.
·
This
didn't appear on an album until 1975, when it was included on Lennon's Shaved
Fish singles compilation. Most Christmas songs are compiled with other
songs of the season, but Shaved Fish listeners got to hear it year
round.
·
At
1:15, there's a line in this song where Lennon sings what sounds to our ears
like "the road is so long." This line was transcribed as "the
world is so wrong" on the Shaved Fish back cover and was
apparently published that way. As a result, most cover versions sing it as
"the world is so wrong," but that would be a rather pessimistic view:
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
"The road is so long" seems more congruent with the hopeful message
of the song, and is likely what he sang. Keep in mind that the lyrics didn't
appear in print until Shaved Fish, four years after the song was
released. It appears this line was transcribed incorrectly and has never been
rectified.
·
Why
not "Merry Christmas" or "Merry Xmas"? In England,
"Happy Christmas" is a more common seasonal greeting and helped
differentiate it from the holiday standard "Merry Christmas Baby." More confusing to Americans is
"Father Christmas," which is the English version of
Santa Claus.
·
The
Fray were the first to chart with this song in America, reaching #50 in 2006;
Sarah McLachlan's version went to #107 that same year. Other artists to cover
it include The Alarm, The Cranes, The December People, and Melissa Etheridge
(in a medley with "Give Peace a Chance").
The Australian artist Delta Goodrem also covered it in 2003, taking it to #1 in
her native country as a double-A-side single with
"Predictable." >>
·
This
was covered by a group called Street Drum Corps. Bert McCracken, the frontman
for rock band The Used, supplied vocals for their cover. It appears on the
album Taste Of Christmas, released in the winter of 2005. The album
is a compilation of classic and original Christmas songs as done by artists on
the Taste Of Chaos tour. >>
·
The
chords and melody borrow heavily from the traditional English folk standard
"Skewball," in particular the 1963 version (titled
"Stewball") by Peter, Paul and Mary.
·
When
Lennon first played his demo for Phil Spector, the producer remarked that the
song's opening line, "So this is Christmas..." was rhythmically
identical to the Paris Sisters' 1961 hit "I Love How You Love Me," which he produced.
·
Though
now a Christmas standard, Lennon originally penned this as a protest song about
the Vietnam War, and the idea "that we're just as responsible as the man
who pushes the button. As long as people imagine that somebody's doing it to
them and that they have no control, then they have no control."
·
Miley
Cyrus, Mark Ronson and Sean Ono Lennon came together at New York's Electric
Lady studios to cover the song for the 2018 holiday season. Cyrus told Jimmy
Fallon that they wanted to do a Christmas song, and there wasn't anything more
relevant to what's going on in the world right now than 'War is Over.'"
She added that not only has Sean inherited his father's voice and looks, he's
also got the former Beatles' "radiant magic."
The trio performed the song on the season finale of Saturday Night Live,
December 15, 2018. For Cyrus, the song is a call to action for her generation,
asking "what have we done?"
·
In
November 2019, John Legend released a new version of the song titled
"Happy Christmas (War Is Over)." He performed his cover with Jorja
Smith at the Global Citizen Prize award ceremony on December 13, 2019 at
London's Royal Albert Hall. Legend's interpretation peaked at #9 in the UK and
#69 in the US.
