Rodrigo Vaz/FilmMagicThis holiday season, Kenny Loggins‘ 1977 classic song “Celebrate Me Home” has proved to be very popular: Both Josh Groban and Elizabeth Chan have recorded new versions of the tune, and they’re both radio hits. But Kenny admits that he didn’t write “Celebrate Me Home” as a holiday song — in fact, he wasn’t even going to put that phrase in the song.
“I had not intended on ‘Celebrate Me Home’ to be a Christmas song,” he tells ABC Audio. “I wrote it in the Christmas season. I was in New York and I wanted to go home.”
“I thought the phrase ‘Celebrate Me Home’ was a filler phrase, the way the classic story of [Paul] McCartney saying ‘Scrambled Eggs’ really became ‘Yesterday,'” he adds.
“And so I thought ‘Celebrate Me Home’ was just something that I’d replace,” Loggins adds. “And then when I played it for [my producer] Phil Ramone, he said, ‘No, that’s the phrase!’ And so I went upstairs and wrote it based on being homesick.”
The fact that Kenny wrote a Christmas classic without meaning to is pretty impressive, because he says it’s not easy for a “new” holiday song to become a modern-day classic.
“It’s a tough club to break into, because it’s so tradition-oriented…it’s very difficult to have a song adopted into that very insular world of Christmas music,” he explains. ” And that’s why we hear the same 20 songs over and over and over again, which drives me crazy!”
However, Kenny does love Christmas music — in fact, he says his kids call him Mr. Christmas. Among his favorites: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and the ultimate holiday tune, Bing Crosby‘s “White Christmas.” He loves that song so much that, he reveals, “My oldest boy’s named Crosby for that reason!”
By Andrea Dresdale
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