In 1973, Elton John had the kind of year most artists only dream about. A truly stratospheric 12-month period in his life, it saw the British singer-songwriter top the U.S. and U.K. album charts with consecutive albums, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player and the widely-lauded Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but he also found time to record and release his first festive holiday song “Step Into Christmas.”
Indeed, both John and his long-time songwriting partner Bernie Taupin were excited by the prospect of making a festive record. They hadn’t written and released a non-album single since 1970’s “Rock ‘N’ Roll Madonna” and they relished the challenge of crafting a song specifically for the Christmas market. “Let’s do a Christmas song, we thought!” John recalled in an interview with American Songwriter. “In those days, we made records all the time. Bernie obviously loves Christmas songs, so he was all for it.”
Listen to Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” now.
Yet while John and Taupin had the desire (and certainly the talent) to create a memorable festive song, time was against them. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was released in October 1973 and Halloween came and went before John and his band got down to writing their Christmas song. Fortunately they had a head start as Davey Johnstone had already worked out a perfect guitar part.
“I came up with this pretty cool acoustic/electric guitar riff and we were off to the races,” the guitarist revealed in an interview on Elton John’s official website. “Roger Pope played tambourine and other members of Kiki Dee’s band were around [in the studio], so Kiki and Jo Partridge joined us for the backing vocals. [Producer] Gus [Dudgeon] and [engineer] David Hentschel came up with the ‘reindeer’ sound after the first “the admission’s free” bit.”
As a result, Elton and company managed to cut both “Step Into Christmas” and its B-side “Ho, Ho, Ho (Who’d Be A Turkey At Christmas)” – and mix both tracks – during an intensive single day session at London’s Trident Studios on November 11, 1973. Then, just days later, the team filmed a suitably seasonal video for the A-side (described by Elton as “the ultimate Christmas party!” in a 2023 YouTube short) and thus “Step Into Christmas” was in the shops in the U.S. the day after Thanksgiving, which fell on November 23 in 1973.
While they had to rush to get everything done on time, John and Taupin didn’t cut any corners. Inspired by Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, Gus Dudgeon’s production had a touch of Spector’s famous “Wall Of Sound,” while “Step Into Christmas’” upbeat vibe, celebratory chorus, and lyrical references watching “the snow fall forever and ever” and to “eat, drink and be merry” ensured it had all seasonal bases covered. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that it immediately went to No. 1 on the Billboard Christmas Singles Chart – or that the song still reappears in Christmas charts in the U.S. and U.K. on an almost annual basis.
“We knew we wanted to have fun and get everything Christmas-y rolled into it, especially the music of Phil Spector, which we tried to emulate,” Elton John said in a 2023 YouTube interview. “Recording it and making the video was just so much fun. I just remember having a ball doing it.”
Listen to the best Christmas songs on Apple Music and Spotify.
