As the holiday season approaches each year, a handful of Christmas songs infiltrate the charts.
One song that is consistently at the top of the list is “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” sung by Brenda Lee. In 2023, it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time since its release in 1958.
Lee was 13 years old when she recorded the song. Now 80, the singer told Yahoo Entertainment that it’s “unbelievable” to see how much it means to people more than half a century later.
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“I love it, I really do. And I never get tired of singing it,” she said. “It didn’t matter what the season was.”
This year, in the week leading up to Christmas, the song is holding steady at No. 2. She took part in a PBS documentary about her life titled American Masters — Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around. It explores how poverty and early stardom impacted her long career.
Lee said she was “proud” to be offered the opportunity.
“As women, when we get to a certain age, we don’t really want to be seen on film. … I don’t look like I did, but I’m still short, so maybe [people] will know who I am,” she said. “Good songs are good songs, and they just last. It’s wonderful, that’s what it is. It’s like a dream.”
Brenda Lee in the 1950s. (Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Born in Georgia, Lee had her big break as a child and became the primary breadwinner for her family by age 10. Over the years, she’s racked up dozens of hits on pop and country charts. She maintained the same passion for performing even when it became increasingly important to those around her.
“I know I sing different for a girl, especially in that time period. I was a belter,” she said. “They called me ‘the little girl with the big voice,’ and I would always think, ‘What do they mean? Is that good or bad?’”
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was written by Johnny Marks, who wrote other classic Christmas songs like “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas.”
“I asked him one time — I was just young enough that I could and not get sass from my mother — ‘Johnny, where do all these songs come from? You don’t believe in Christmas, you’re Jewish,’” Lee recalled. “He laughed his head off and said, ‘I don’t know, but every time I sit down to write, that’s what comes out!’ I said, ‘Good for you!’”
Marks died in 1985, five years before “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was featured in the film Home Alone. That was its second big breakout moment. Lee said she still credits Marks for the song’s success.
“I look to the heavens and say, ‘Johnny, we did it again,’” Lee said. “He was a precious, precious man.”
Since then, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has been a mainstay during the holiday season. The song finally made it to the top of the charts in 2023, which was the same year Lee released a music video for it featuring country singers Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood.
“The record label wanted me to do one because I never had,” she said. “I called some of my friends and said, ‘Hey, I need your help,’ and they all came!”
That was also the year her team started posting videos of her on TikTok, where she amassed a following jokingly referred to as the Brendanators. She said she was happy to do it because she wanted “kids today to know what a well-written, well-crafted song really sounded like.”
“Not that music today isn’t good, but kids don’t know how music was back then,” Lee said. “There were great artists back then, and a lot of them were my dear, dear friends. I just wanted to introduce people to this area of show business.”
“I’m so thankful that a young person still cares about this old singer,” she added.
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