"I Want to Come Home for Christmas" is a

holiday song Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...

recorded by

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...

in 1972. The song was co-written by Gaye and Forest Hairston and was released on a posthumous Marvin compilation titled, '' The Marvin Gaye Collection'' 18 years later.

Overview

Recording

The idea of the song came to Forest Hairston after seeing pictures of people tying yellow ribbons around trees for

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

troops who were forced to be

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

or P.O.W. Hairston hadn't finished writing the song when Marvin Gaye, who he had become friends with, happened to stop by his house. When Gaye asked Hairston what he was working on, he said he was "messing with a song" in tribute to the Vietnam troops. Gaye had mentioned to Hairston that he wanted to have a holiday song of his own and asked Hairston to play him a bit of it. Gaye stopped him mid-track and began to work more on the track with him, adding in melody and harmony parts. Gaye later took Hairston's track and went to the Motown Recording Studios in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, otherwise known as

Hitsville West Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...

, and produced the track himself. Gaye finished the recording in one take and after it was recorded on tape, returned to Hairston's apartment and slipped the tape in Hairston's recorder. When Hairston heard it, he immediately hugged Gaye complimenting his talents, to which Gaye laughed.

Issues with Motown and later releases

The song was supposed to be part of a Christmas-themed album by Gaye, and was given the Tamla number T-323L and scheduled for release in late 1972. But the album was never released. Gaye struggled to get the song released as a single for Vietnam troops with Motown. Eighteen years after its recording and six years after Gaye's untimely death, the song was reissued on ''The Marvin Gaye Collection''. It also appeared as a bonus track on a later reissue of the compilation '' A Motown Christmas''. Hairston would recall he received a royalty check from the song a few years later after the album's release. Later evaluation of the song by critics labeled it as a "masterpiece". Ever since 1990, especially during the

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, Gaye's song has been played on R&B radio stations during the Christmas season. The song was featured on the 2019 release of the posthumous Gaye album '' You’re The Man''.

Credits

*All vocals by

*Instruments by

The Funk Brothers The Funk Brothers were a group of Detroit-based session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown recordings from 1959 until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972. Its members are considered among the most successful groups of stud ...

and Marvin Gaye *Written by Forest Hairston and Marvin Gaye *Produced and arranged by Marvin Gaye

Charts

References

{{authority control 1972 songs Marvin Gaye songs Songs written by Marvin Gaye American Christmas songs Songs of the Vietnam War Song recordings produced by Marvin Gaye