Eddie left us just over two years ago. Everybody knows “Take Me Home Tonight”, of course. He had about a dozen top forty hits, and that one was his biggest (though he had several number ones on the rock charts). He also had four platinum albums, the first of which actually went double platinum.
Eddie Money wasn’t really known as a Christmas music guy, though. Still, I have half a dozen songs from him in the Sounds of Christmas library.
In the 80s, there was a Classic Rock Christmas collection that came out with Eddie’s version of "Merry Christmas Baby". This one resurfaced again about 10-15 years ago, but is currently out of print.
In the 90s, Eddie released a live album called “Shakin’ With The Money Man” and that included four new songs, one of which was a Christmas song, “Everybody Loves Christmas”, which also featured Ronnie Spector on backing vocals.
That song also showed up in the movie “The Santa Clause 2” a few years later.
About ten years ago, Eddie performed on a version of “The Little Drummer Boy”, with Corey Glover and the Counterfeiters.
There was a version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with singer Carmel five or six years ago. And that was quickly followed by “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” either later that year or the next.
A nice Christmas catalogue from someone not really known for Christmas music. But that’s all in the past. I want to talk about a new single that’s just out.
Eddie’s kids have re-done his song “Everybody Loves Christmas” and I think it’s pretty terrific. The title of their version is actually “Everybody Loves Christmas: A Song For Dad”. They’ve changed the lyrics, to reflect on something many of us have become all too familiar with - a Christmas without a loved one.
But this is not a sad song. It’s warm and hopeful, and reminds us that we should think about all those happy Christmases we were fortunate to have together. And Eddie’s vocals appear in the chorus, singing along with his kids.
Dez Money and Jesse Money, who are singers in their own right, have re-written this song in a way that anyone who has experienced this kind of loss can relate to. I'm not going to post the lyrics here, but if you check out the song on Dez' YouTube channel, you can read them there yourself (and I'll post that link and the video down below).
This song touches me on a very personal level, as I lost my father almost two years ago. I have lots of wonderful memories of my Dad, even at this time of year when we lived on opposite coasts.
While I run the Sounds of Christmas like a traditional radio station, there isn’t much talking. There aren’t a lot of commercials, and my voice only comes up once or twice an hour (and even then, it’s only for about ten seconds). But my Dad used to listen, and he would message me as soon as he heard my voice.
It was silly and sweet, and I sure miss getting those messages this time of year. But listening to this song helps me to think back on these memories with love, and to feel like he’s still around, waiting for my little ten-seconds to come up so he can tell me heard me and he’s so proud of me.
Anyway, I really don’t want to make this all about me. I just wanted to share my experience with this song. And since it’s just come out so close to Christmas, I wanted to share that here, in case you didn’t know about it, so you could go listen to it yourself (either on the Sounds of Christmas, or on Dez’ YouTube channel, or on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and all the rest of the digital music streaming services).
For the Scrooges out there, I feel like I need to say that I don’t know any of the members of the Money family, and I didn’t know Eddie. This is not a paid advertisement. I simply felt, very strongly, that I had come across something that was pretty special, and I wanted to share it with you as we all get very busy moving through this final week leading up to Christmas.
Anyway, here's the video...
Thank you for reading this far, and for listening! And may you always believe in Santa Claus!
Ken