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“Little Saint Nick”/ “The Lord’s Prayer” by the Beach Boys were Side A & B on a single released December 9, 1963. Climbing to no.3 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart, “Little Saint Nick” soon earned the status of holiday classic.

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Feature image: Santa’s reindeer, December 2024. Author’s photograph. All rights reserved.

The Beach Boys’ first no. 1 single would be I Get Around in May 1964. It was about time: in 1963 the surfer pop band from California had 5 top ten hits, 3 of them in the top 5, and 3 top-10 albums. They did their first U.S tour in April 1963. The Beach Boys’ Surfin’ U.S.A. was Billboard’s no.1 song of the year. By December 1963 with their first Christmas single, Little Saint Nick, topping the charts, it seemed the Beach Boys were America’s most celebrated pop band. Only Newark, New Jersey’s The Four Seasons approached their chart-topping popularity. But two months later with the British Invasion of the Beatles to America, the rock’n roll world was turned inside out, upside down, and the Beach Boys were suddenly challenged by the Fab Four to keep up.

Little Saint Nick was released as a single on December 9, 1963 and peaked at no. 3 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart. The music, whose pacing and structure resembled Little Deuce Coupe written in the same time period, was composed by Brian Wilson in August 1963. Mike Love, who wrote most of the lyrics, trained his ear not on singing about a car but a bobsled.

The holiday classic had a less known but significant recording on side B: The Lord’s Prayer by Albert May Malotte (1895-1964), adapted by the Beach Boys. Arranged and led by Brian Wilson, it was sung a cappella in four interlocking harmonies and was both a creative and spiritual accomplishment for the band of early twenty-somethings. At Christmas 1963 the Beach Boys were America’s number 1 band. In mid January 1964 they flew to Australia and New Zealand on their first international tour and when they returned on February 2, 1964, their single, Fun, Fun, Fun, was released the next day.

That song peaked at no. 5 on March 21, 1964, and in those handful of weeks from its release, the rock ‘n roll world had forever changed — and none more so than for the Beach Boys.

This was because on February 9, 1964 the British Invasion began. The Beatles, Paul, John, George and Ringo, were invited to appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show before a huge national audience. The Beach Boys as the no. 1 pop band hadn’t yet been invited onto that television stage, so that the Beatles, seen by an audience of around 74 million – literally half the country – had an immediate impact.

The Beatles appeared several times on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and 1965 and transformed American rock’n roll forever. “The Beatles Ed Sullivan Theater Marquee” by mkfeeney is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Overnight the Beach Boys appeared almost bush league compared to these Brits – not in terms of their music which came from the same milieu of boisterous tunes about a carefree teenage world – but, as would be the case in the 1980’s when the Brits outpaced the Americans in use of music videos, in terms of effective publicity, packaging, and merchandising. In the long wake of this crisis moment – the Beatles would appear in 1964 on the Ed Sullivan Show two more times that February and again in May 1964 – Brian Wilson’s competition with the Beatles had begun. Going forward, the world of rock ‘n roll would not be the same. It quickly transformed in the next five years of the 1960’s to be more original, open to experimenting, and consciously seeking brand new sounds which came to many fruitions for the Beach Boys, Beatles, and others. Little Saint Nick with its hook and beat has endured to today from Christmas 1963 on the cusp, half unknowingly, of one of rock n’roll’s epoch-making revolutions.

The Lord’s Prayer on side B. The Beach Boys worked long hours to apply their intricate harmonies used on chart-topping pop songs for Christianity’s venerated prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples. In the process, by hopefully elevating these sacred words to a deeper level, the band could also show that their “surfer sound” was more complex and profound than simple light musical fare.

Little Saint Nick LYRICS:

(Ooooooooh, merry Christmas Saint Nick)
(Christmas comes this time each year)
(Oooooooo-ooooooooh)

Well, way up north where the air gets cold
There’s a tale about Christmas that you’ve all been told
And a real famous cat all dressed up in red
And he spends the whole year workin’ out on his sled

It’s the little Saint Nick
(Oooooh, little Saint Nick)
It’s the little Saint Nick
(Oooooh, little Saint Nick)

Just a little bobsled, we call it old Saint Nick
But she’ll walk a toboggan with a four speed stick
She’s candy-apple red with a ski for a wheel
And when Santa hits the gas, man, just watch her peel

It’s the little Saint Nick
(Oooooh, little Saint Nick)
It’s the little Saint Nick
(Oooooh, little Saint Nick)

Run, run, reindeer
Run, run, reindeer
(Oh-oh-oh-oh)
Run, run, reindeer
Run, run, reindeer
He don’t miss no one

And haulin’ through the snow at a frightenin’ speed
With a half a dozen deer with Rudy to lead
He’s gotta wear his goggles ’cause the snow really flies
And he’s cruisin’ every pad with a little surprise

It’s the little Saint Nick
(Oooooh, little Saint Nick)
It’s the little Saint Nick
(Oooooh, little Saint Nick)

(Aaa-aaa-aaah)
(Ooooooooh, merry Christmas Saint Nick)
(Christmas comes this time each year)
(Aaa-aaa-aaah)
(Ooooooooh, merry Christmas Saint Nick)
(Christmas comes this time each year)
(Aaa-aaa-aaah)
(Ooooooooh, merry Christmas Saint Nick)
(Christmas comes this time each year)
(Aaa-aaa-aaah)
(Ooooooooh, merry Christmas Saint Nick)
(Christmas comes this time each year)

“brian wilson and dog” by posixeleni is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

SOURCES:

Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, Penguin Publishing Group, Mike Love, 2016, pp. 84-88.

The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio, Keith Badman, Backbeat Books; First Edition, 2004, pp. 45-54.

Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles, 1955-1999, Record Research, Inc., Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, 2000, pp.38-39.

The Beach Boys: America’s Band, Johnny Morgan, Union Square & Co.; Illustrated edition, 2015, pp. 61-65.