How Marvin Gaye made an anti-war Christmas classic
Marvin Gaye was at the peak of his powers in 1972. Having just bought his artistic freedom from Motown’s headman, Berry Gordy, with the 1971 masterpiece What’s Going On, Gaye had the ability to follow his muse anywhere it took him. Eventually, he would release a string of classic albums, including Let’s Get It On and Here, My Dear, but first, Gaye wanted to focus on Christmas.
Some of Gaye’s younger contemporaries at the label, including Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5, had found major success with their own holiday-themed records. In particular, Wonder had crafted a Christmas song that infused themes of anti-war and global unity, ‘Someday at Christmas’, that had quickly become a standard. Gaye wanted his own song like that, but first, he had to visit a friend.
Forest Hairston was a fellow Detroit artist who scored a minor hit with 1966’s ‘We Go To Pieces’. Eventually, Hairston would become a songwriting collaborator with Smokey Robinson. In the early 1970s, however, he moved to Los Angeles and was trying to continue his living in the music industry. That’s when he befriended Gaye, who would open the door to Motown for Hairston.
While Gaye had dreams of crafting a classic Christmas song, Hairston was busy writing a track about Vietnam War veterans. Sharing the same socially conscious vision as Gaye, Hairston composed about half of a song when Gaye himself popped into Hairston’s house. When Hairston showed him what he was working on, Gaye began adding his own touches, including the key shift of transforming the anti-war song into a holiday tune.
‘I Want to Come Home for Christmas’ was supposed to be the first track added to a full-length holiday album from Gaye. At the time, Gaye had a few different projects floating in the air, including the soundtrack to the film Trouble Man, a studio album called You’re the Man and the beginnings of what would become Let’s Get It On. There simply wasn’t enough time to get a Christmas album together by the end of 1972, so Gaye shelved the LP.
In the process of doing so, Gaye deprived ‘I Want to Come Home for Christmas’ of appearing on a different classic Christmas album. Gaye had held off the song from appearing on A Motown Christmas in favour of creating his own Christmas album (there are also rumours that Gordy nixed the song’s inclusion due to its more overt anti-war sentiments). It wouldn’t be until a 1999 reissue that ‘I Want to Come Home for Christmas’ finally appeared on the album, nearly 30 years after the original LP’s release.
Check out ‘I Want to Come Home for Christmas’ down below.
