Why Bob Dylan Made a Christmas Album

When one thinks of Christmas music, a few famous vocalists likely come to mind: Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, perhaps Frank Sinatra. Certainly not Bob Dylan.

Nevertheless, Dylan decided to buck tradition in 2009 and go, well, traditional, releasing an album full of nothing but holiday music titled Christmas in the Heart. On it were both biblical numbers — things like “Little Drummer Boy,” “O’ Come All Ye Faithful” and “The First Noel” — as well as some less serious songs like “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland” and “Must Be Santa.” Several of Dylan’s longtime band members contributed: Tony Garnier, Donnie Herron, etc.

Those people had no real idea what they were getting into when Dylan called them into the studio.

“I just got this call to say Bob was going to work for a couple of weeks, and if was I available could I come down. And so I said, ‘Yeah, sure,'” multi-instrumentalist David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, who played accordion, guitar, mandolin and violin on the album, said in 2015. “When I found out it was a Christmas record was actually the first day in the studio: we go in, and we’re going to do ‘Silver Bells,’ you know, an old standard, a Christmas song. And I just thought…wow. I said to Bob, ‘Is this a Christmas record?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I think so…’ He wasn’t quite sure yet either!”

Of course, as with many Dylan projects — studio, live or otherwise — the songs’ arrangements were straightforward and yet not. They stuck mainly to original structures, with room for the various musicians to put their own small spins on things.

We’d just start from a loose framework of a song,” Hidalgo explained, “we’d start playing, and we’d just goof around with it for a while until it started to sound like something – and usually, that would be the take that [Dylan] would like, it was usually the first or second take that he would keep.”

Joy appeared the central aspect of Christmas in the Heart, making merry during the holiday season. In a music video for “Must Be Santa,” an extra jaunty inclusion on the album, a wig-wearing Dylan frolics from room to room, partying with everyone along the way.

Watch the Music Video for Bob Dylan’s ‘Must Be Santa’

Bob Dylan, Born Again Christian (Kinda)

But why would Dylan, who was raised Jewish and continued to participate in Jewish religious events over the course of his life, feel the urge to make a Christmas-themed album?

For one thing, it must be remembered that Dylan converted to Christianity in the ’70s, made a trilogy of Christian albums and spent time in Bible classes. This, however, did not last all that long — by the mid ’80s, Dylan was again speaking in more general spiritual terms.

“Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else,” he told Newsweek in 1997. “Songs like ‘Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain’ or ‘I Saw the Light’ — that’s my religion. I don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I’ve learned more from the songs than I’ve learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.”

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Bob Dylan Album

Really, what appeared to motivate Dylan was not religion but nostalgia. He may have grown up in a Jewish household, but Christmas time in Minnesota as a boy still had, as he described to The Big Issue magazine (via Reuters), “plenty of snow, jingle bells, Christmas carolers going from house to house, sleighs in the streets, town bells ringing, nativity plays.”

Listen to Bob Dylan’s ‘Little Drummer Boy’

As Dylan saw it, Christmas songs, like various other kinds of music, were simply “part of my life, just like folk songs.” Recorded at Jackson Browne‘s Groove Masters Studio in Santa Monica, California, Christmas in the Heart came out on Oct. 13, 2009.

For a Good Cause

Dylan may be ambiguous but he is not uncaring. True, Christmas in the Heart puzzled many critics and fans alike, but it all, quite literally, was for a good cause: proceeds from the album’s sale went toward Feeding America in the U.S. and the United Nations’ World Food Programme and Crisis in the U.K.

Why? “They get food straight to the people,” he explained then. “No military organization, no bureaucracy, no governments to deal with.” The royalty donations were made in perpetuity — Christmas in the Heart continues to raise money for those causes to date. (And just in case you can’t get enough: as of 2024, a forest green Christmas in the Heart t-shirt is available for purchase on Dylan’s website.)

All told, Dylan’s objective in making a holiday album likely boils down to nothing more than a sense of solidarity. Christmas music can be sung by anyone, or as Dylan said: “Everybody can relate to it in their own way.”

Listen to Bob Dylan’s ‘Silver Bells’