Madonna's "Holiday" is a great song about taking a holiday. There's no reason to think that the holiday in question is supposed to be Christmas. Some modern radio programmers are ignoring the tune's context and are trying to rebrand it as a Yuletide song. Here's a look at why that might be.
All genres have tropes and Christmas songs are no exception. Christmas tunes tend to mention Jesus Christ, Santa Claus, winter, and animals like reindeer and hippopotamuses. Songs in this genre also tend to feature jingle bells, traditional pop strings, and Phil Spector-style Wall of Sound production.
"Holiday" has none of that. It's a funky dance song that's about as wintery as a trip to Hawaii. The only reason anyone would connect the tune to Christmas is its title. However, "Holiday" seems to use its title in the British sense, meaning a vacation. It's perfect for the summer. I supposed "Holiday" might work as a Christmas song if you are celebrating Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere.
So if "Holiday" doesn't really fit the season, why do some radio programmers treat it like a Christmas song? Some listeners seem a little sick of the current Yuletide canon. Every year, we hear "All I Want for Christmas Is You," "Last Christmas," "White Christmas," etc. Perhaps radio stations just want to switch things up a little.
In addition, Madonna's star power is impossible to overestimate. She gave us one famous Christmas song -- a cover of Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby." However, many people hate Madonna's "Santa Baby" because of her decision to sing it in a phony New York accent. "Holiday" might not be right for the holiday season, but it doesn't irritate people like "Santa Baby" often does.
"Holiday" was written not by Madonna, but by Lisa Stevens and Curtis Hudson. During a 2012 interview with Blogcritics, Stevens discussed the origin of the dong. She didn't connect it to Christmas -- or any other holiday, for that matter.
"I woke up, got on the keyboard and started playing those beginning chords over and over for a day or two," she recalled. "I couldn't come up with anything else. I just kept hearing those chords. Curt said, 'Lisa, I hear something with that.' At first, I said, 'Wait a minute. Let me sit with this for a while.' And then, I didn't come up with anything. He came up with the hook -- 'Holiday, celebrate' -- and that funky bassline. We just kicked it back and forth."
Hudson explained his contributions to the classic track. "Lisa wanted to go in a different direction," he said. "I was inspired by those first two chords. It kind of sticks in your gut. I wanted to write to it while I had that initial feeling. Maybe a week went by. By the time she said 'Go ahead, you can write,' I pretty much had the whole song in mind. I had been feeling it, so it poured out of me."
Madonna's "Holiday" is one of the most beloved dance songs of the 1980s but any attempts to turn it into a Christmas song feel a little flat.