https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EvZOXEoJ84 Sample lyric: "If there was a way I'd hold back this tear. But it's Christmas, please please please please baby please come home." Sixties uber-producer and all round gun-toting maniac control freak Phil Spector released his festive compilation A Christmas Gift For You on November 22nd 1963. The same day President Kennedy was assassinated. Perhaps unsurprisingly the market for Christmas songs, and particularly downbeat ones, was not really there that year. The album flopped as did its standout track Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) as a single. The song takes the snow-and-tree-decorations-aren't-worth-anything-without-you theme of Blue Christmas and steps it up a level with a pleading chorus begging for the loved one's return. Originally intended for The Ronettes, it turned out that Spector's wife Ronnie couldn't imbue the song with the appropriately emotional tone. Instead it was given to Darlene Love as someone who could make Baby Please Come Home sound properly depressing. Over time the song grew in popularity. Since the 1980s Love's performances have been a festive fixture annually on David Letterman's Late Show. Its downbeat content has made it a favourite seasonal cover for alternative bands from R.E.M. to Death Cab For Cutie. The best version, though, is a feedback heavy take from Danish duo The Raveonettes, obviously always fans of Spector's Wall of Sound style.