“You’re Welcome!” (a “greeting card” song)

Here’s how it happened…

In 2009, a buddy and fellow musician/songwriter/producer told me of a friend of his who had a publishing company seeking Christmas songs written in the vein of early 60’s girl groups, such as The Ronettes.  In those days, paying gigs were few and far between, so I immediately set to work and wrote a sort of “concept” song, (as I like to think of it)—that is, I came up with a basic concept, in this case, that “Santa Claus is timeless for everyone”.  I then wrote verses, chorus, and a bridge that drive the idea.  I’m a big fan of The Ronettes, so it was fun to write and produce the music.

Check out my original demo, above…enjoy!

Happy with what I’d come up with, I presented this demo to my friend “Mia Crosby”, who gladly recorded the vocal for me, (we’re great friends, and had worked closely before on another project); her voice was perfect for the piece. 

I then presented this to the head of the publishing company, who didn’t care for my concept. We’d had conversations (read: disagreements) on the phone about it for hours.  Ultimately, he wouldn’t promote the track unless I edited the lyrics, thus the concept, to the idea he’d had in mind, that a young girl wants a boy as a present for Christmas (which is a nice, simple idea for someone else to write, but awful from my creative standpoint). 

I went through several more drafts and argued some more; in candor, I’d really felt it had ruined the song.  My buddy—the one who’d introduced me to the company man, essentially said, “well, if you want an opportunity to make some money from the track, you can give in, or, you can keep it as is, and have your integrity”.  I gave in, and made changes to suit the “innocent girl” idea the company man wanted, and what resulted was a song that has been played in department stores and offices all over the world, much to the dismay of the employees who have to hear it a zillion times per day. (I’ve never understood why, after hating hearing the song endlessly at their tedious jobs, they’d then seek it out online and thus, give the song even more power, by way of attention, but they continue to do so year after year).  I’d even once heard it in my own doctor’s office!

Here is the version they hear, and the low budget video we’d make for fun back then…my friend Sandhya shot using green screen and edited the whole thing in my little NYC apartment in a day…enjoy!