"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (sometimes with "Coming" changed to "Comin'") is a Christmas song that was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, and first sung on Eddie Cantor's radio show in November 1934. It became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas. The song is often used to tell children that Santa Claus knows when they've been bad or good and that they should be good.
The song was so popular that Rankin/Bass made it into a TV special in 1970, with Fred Astaire voicing the storyteller, S. D. Kluger. The song itself has been recorded hundreds of times, the most popular versions include those by the Andrews Sisters with Bing Crosby, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Cyndi Lauper with Frank Sinatra in an electronically enhanced duet (Sinatra also sang this solo), The Beach Boys, the Pointer Sisters (covering a Phil Spector produced version by The Ronettes), and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. A version sung by Mariah Carey was included as a bonus feature in the 2005 DVD release of the Rankin/Bass special.
Lyrics
- [Chorus]
- You better watch out, you better not cry
- You better not pout; I'm telling you why
- Santa Claus is coming to town
- He's making a list and checking it twice
- Gonna find out who's naughty or nice
- Santa Claus is coming to town
- He sees you when you're sleeping
- He knows when you're awake
- He knows that you've been bad or good
- So be good for goodness sake
- [Chorus]
- With little tin horns, and little toy drums
- Rudy-toot-toots and rummy tum-tums.
- Santa Claus is coming to town.
- And little toy dolls that cuddle and coo
- Elephants, boats and kiddie cars too.
- Santa Claus is coming to town.
- The kids in Girl and Boy Land
- Will have a jubilee.
- They're gonna build a Toyland town
- All around the Christmas tree.
- [Chorus]
Album releases
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