Olivia Rodrigo's Christmas Song Sounds Very Familiar

Personally, I feel that November 6th is too early for Christmas stuff. I really believe we shouldn’t be seeing festive crap in shops in early September, let alone before you Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. But Santa and Jesus sure do love to hog the spotlight, so us grinches must deal with it. Mariah Carey has been released from her ice cave. The Christmas season is here. So, it’s time to crack out the classic songs. Hoping to join the ranks is Olivia Rodrigo, who just dropped her very first Christmas song, “Take Me Home (4 Christmas)”. And guys, it might be a bop?

It’s all about Olivia asking some feckless guy to show some commitment and bring her back home to his parents’ place for the holidays. For the video, Rodrigo recruited Cynthis Nixon and SNL star Ben Marshall. Posting on social media, Rodrigo said it was written last summer with her longtime collaborator Dan Nigro, and Amy Allen, who has previously contributed to songs by Harry Styles, Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McCrae.

If you’re wondering why this song sounds familiar, there’s a reason for that. It’s sampling one of the all-time great festive songs, “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses. Chris Butler, who wrote the song, revealed on his Facebook page that Rodrigo had contacted him personally to seek permission to use “Christmas Wrapping.” He had no idea who she was and thought the email was a joke. But after listening to her music and confirming it was the real thing, he agreed. He praised her song and said, “It’s going to be a smash, maybe even that elusive Christmas number one contest they have every year in the UK.”

Ah yes, the elusive Christmas number one. It’s a surprisingly big deal in the UK, certainly more so than in America. I’m not really sure why. It’s been a thing since the ’50s, but for a while, it was a contentious topic. During the peak of The X Factor’s popularity, the number one song every year was whoever won that show. People eventually grew so sick of it that there was a campaign to push back against Simon Cowell’s reign of terror. In 2009, the X Factor winner, Joe McElderry, lost the number one spot too Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” thanks to a viral campaign.

Charity singles do well here. For five years in a row, a YouTuber called LadBaby was the Christmas number one with various unlistenable songs about sausage rolls. But actual Christmas-themed songs? They’re not as big a deal in this slot as you’d think. Sure, you’ll always see Slade, Wizzard and LiveAid on the charts in December, but seldom number one. An exception came with 2023 and 2024 with Wham! and the return of “Last Christmas.”

This year, Rodrigo has festive competition in the form of Sam Fender, whose cover of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is featured in the John Lewis Christmas ad (another thing that’s a weirdly big deal in the UK.) Elton John has teamed up with CMAT for a redo of his song “Step Into Christmas.” Nile Rodgers has teamed up with Rebecca Ferguson (not that one) for a cover of “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)”, but they’ve received backlash for having AI in their music video. And, of course, Mariah Carey can never be discounted. She rules all