The Chimney Song

Album: Twisted Christmas (1987)
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Songfacts®:

  • In this truly twisted Christmas song, Santa doesn't come because he gets stuck in the chimney. Even worse, he can't get out, and after a while, the family detects a foul odor.

    Bob Rivers was a disc jockey at WAAF in Worcester, Massachusetts, when he started doing parody songs for his show. After recording "Twelve Pains Of Christmas" in 1986, Atlantic Records commissioned a full album, which became Twisted Christmas. The album was a huge hit, selling over 500,000 copies.
  • Rivers wrote this song with his collaborators Dennis Amero and Brian Silva, with Amero the biggest contributor to "The Chimney Song." Rivers explained in a Songfacts interview: "He had this offbeat idea: What if Santa Claus got stuck in the chimney and died there? And what if there's a little girl going, 'Something's wrong with our chimney.'"
  • The little girl who did the vocal on this song is the daughter of Joanne List, who was one of the singers Rivers used on his parodies.

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