Please Come Home For Christmas: The Story Behind The Seasonal Song Covered By Eagles And Cher

Who originally sang Please Come For Christmas?

Charles Brown was the original artist to sing Please Come Home For Christmas, recording the song that he co-wrote in September 1960, ready for a December release. He was already highly experienced as a performer and songwriter, and – in a familiar story shared by many Black artists of the day – had experienced exploitative treatment at the hands of record companies. Many previous songs he had written, including the incredibly popular Driftin’ Blues, earned little (if any) money for Brown.

Brown was a Texan by birth, and he witnessed how the segregation in Southern clubs became far more difficult to enforce during the R&B boom of the 50s. Talking in a rare TV interview during the 80s, Brown reflected on how white people were only supposed to watch his performances from the club balconies, so they were kept apart from Black audiences near to the front of the stage. “It’s a funny thing, and that’s what really changed the era,” Brown said. “Those white young people, who were sitting up there, they were watching these guys and they said, ‘We wanna get down there.’ They rampaged those places.”

Eagles’ cover version

Please Come Home For Christmas was covered during the 60s by Brown’s fellow R&B artists, including Little Johnny Taylor and James Brown. But it was in the 70s when the song really gained renewed popularity, via new version by Eagles.

In 1978, Eagles were mired in recording hell. They were crafting their sixth album, The Long Run, and were already six months behind schedule. The record company was getting jittery and were pressing the band for progress. Then Eagles’ Don Henley said, “Well, maybe if we give them a Christmas single they’ll get off our backs.”

Henley remembered Please Come Home For Christmas from his youth, and suggested it to the rest of the band, who liked the idea. Two or three days later the song was recorded, and – in the words of producer Bill Szymczyk – the group “gave it to the label and then they did indeed get off our back until it was finished”.

Eagles’ reformulated and updated Brown’s original (even changing the first line from “glad, glad news” to “sad, sad news”), creating a marriage of soul and soft-rock that sits among the best Eagles songs. The band even leaned into the clichés surrounding their Los Angeles lifestyle with the single’s deliberately non-festive artwork, which pictured a bare-chested Eagles enjoying drinks by the pool.

In the 90s, and sticking with the Eagles’ mood of laidback rock, Jon Bon Jovi covered Please Come Home For Christmas, with all proceeds going to charity. First released on the 1992 benefit album A Very Special Christmas 2 – the sequel to one of the best Christmas albums of all time – the Bon Jovi cover was so popular that it was later put out as a standalone single, with a video starring supermodel Cindy Crawford.

Cher’s cover version

Please Come Home For Christmas has proved itself an enduring favourite, and – in a change from its soulful and rock predecessors – is particularly loved by pop artists. Steps, Kelly Clarkson, Hanson and Adam Lambert have all sung the tune. Most famously, George Ezra covered the song, retitling it Come On Home For Christmas. His version reached the UK Top 10 in 2021, though a version by Cher, released two years later, truly brought the song up to date.

Using the “sad, sad news” version of the lyrics for her cover of Please Come Home For Christmas, issued on her her 2023 album, Christmas, Cher created a strong, modern version of this perennial classic that sounds Christmas, sounds Cher, and also honours the beauty of Charles Brown’s original. “I didn’t wanna do Christmas songs as I’d heard them, as I know them,” Cher said, when promoting Christmas. “They were all so different, and I could sing them in different ways and they made me happy.”

Sung in many different ways over the decades, Please Come Home For Christmas continues to make both artists and listeners happy, its lyrics getting to the emotional truth of many people’s experience over the holiday season.

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