"I Believe in Father Christmas" - U2
SIngle
Track Listing:
- "I Believe in Father Christmas" (Studio Version) - U2 (03:23)
- "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" (Studio Version) - U2 (02:21)
- "Angel of Harlem" (Studio Version) - U2 (03:49)
- "If God Will Send His Angels" (Studio Version) - U2 (05:22)
- "New Year's Day" (Studio Version) - U2 (05:35)
Background Information
In 2008, U2 covered Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas” and released it digitally as part of the RED Wire Magazine. In 2021, U2 released the song as a standalone digital single with just the title track. At this point we can confirm that the single has been released for sale in Japan and is available on some streaming services in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, etc. The release date for the single is November 26, 2021. The song is accompanied by a new image drawn by Bono of a Christmas tree made out of Merry Christmas written in a number of languages.
On December 10, a five song EP was released with the same artwork, and called the “I Believe in Father Christmas” EP. It is available only to stream and not available for purchase.
The U2 track was recorded on November 26th, 2008. Ned O’Hanlon who produced the video described the recording of the song: “About an hour and a half ago, we got the band upstairs into the studio, from a standing start, ah, the four guys never played, never heard it, didn’t know the lyric, and we have a video in the bag, which is ah, quite extraordinary”. The song itself is a cover of a song by Greg Lake, of Emerson Lake and Palmer. A “Behind the Scenes” look at the filming of the video and recording of the song was released to U2.com subscribers later in the month of December.
Initially only available through the RED Wire magazine, it was released a year later in 2009 on a Starbucks exclusive CD, titled All You Need is Love, released free at Starbucks when customers spent more than $15 in store. The video for the track, filmed in 2008 recently was remastered in last year’s video project and can be seen here. In recent years the track has been included on the Greatest Xmas Songs compilation. Mastering of this new digital single looks the same as the Greatest Xmas Songs CD, which is a little quieter than the Starbucks CD / RED Wire releases.