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Bradley Olson's avatar

Another topic of Christmas music are Christmas songs about very dark things and Please Daddy... Is one of those songs as he is telling his father to not get drunk on Christmas although it is a drinking song, Woody Guthrie's 1913 Massacre, and also John Prine's Christmas In Prison.

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Bradley Olson's avatar

Another song that has become a country music Christmas standard is Tennessee Christmas, co-written and first recorded by Amy Grant in 1983, now every country artist covers it.

Also, John Denver put out Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas in 1973 as a single from his Farewell Andromeda album which didn't do well as a single, but the version that's become the standard airplay throughout the 70s otherwise is the 1975 re-recording from his Rocky Mountain Christmas album.

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Bradley Olson's avatar

Also Roger Miller's Old Toy Trains was a country and AC Christmas favorite in the 1960s.

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Bradley Olson's avatar

The Marvelous Toy by the Chad Mitchell Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, etc. Although this isn't a Christmas song per se, it was long a Christmas staple during the 1960s. John Denver's 1998 recording did make it a Christmas song though with a few lyric changes.

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Bradley Olson's avatar

The Bell That Couldn't Jingle by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Dearest Santa by Bobby Vinton, the New Christy Minstrels material, Santa Claus Is Watching You by Ray Stevens which was a single on Mercury in 1962, re-recorded in 1985 for the I Have Returned album on MCA and it is the 1985 recording that was made into a music video that was heavily played on TNN and CMT.

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Bradley Olson's avatar

Also, one of the very first recordings of the Carol of the Drum was done by the Trapp Family Singers.

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