Amy Grant • Tennessee Christmas
Christmas Song of the Day: Tennessee Christmas - Amy Grant
Yesterday: It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas, by Johnny Mathis
One of the most touching and enjoyable Christmas songs that has come out during my lifetime, is Tennessee Christmas. It’s possible that you may not be familiar with it, and you’d be the poorer for not having this wonderful song in your Christmas music repertoire. In fact, my wife Beverlee and I actually consider it to be our favorite Christmas song. (Of course that’s apart from the many classic, historic Christmas carols which we will get to next week).
Christmas Lights in Nashville
For about 6 of my growing up years, I lived about two hours from Nashville, so I relate to the sentiment and the setting of the song. And I remember hearing this record (Amy’s 1st Christmas album — which contains Tennessee Christmas), when it first came out during the Christmas season of 1983. I was instantly a fan, and we wore out our vinyl LP playing it for so many Christmases.
A Christmas Album is the seventh album and first Christmas album by contemporary Christian music artist Amy Grant. The album was recorded in nine studios in mid-1983 and was released later that same year. It was later certified platinum by the RIAA. Her later 1992 Home For Christmas album would be certified triple platinum! That’s a big deal for Christmas records. In fact that 2nd album peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Album chart, and ranks as the eighteenth best-selling Christmas album ever.
Before I say more about this great song, Tennessee Christmas, please indulge me for a moment, because I’d like to say a word more about the amazing influence of Amy Grant.
Grant has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide (the best-selling contemporary Christian artist of all time). And she has had 17 No. 1 albums on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, more than any other artist in the chart's history. 17 Albums! No.1! She was also the first major Christian artist to successfully cross over into the mainstream.
Her 1988 album Lead Me On shipped on Day 1 with a gold certification. In 1986, Grant recorded her first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 with The Next Time I Fall, a duet with Peter Cetera, the lead singer for Chicago. Then in 1991, Grant's album Heart in Motion became her best-selling album, selling over six million copies. Led by the international hit Baby Baby, Grant's second No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, the album had five singles chart in the top 20 (two No. 1s & two No. 2s), and was certified 5× platinum by the RIAA. Whew. That’s a mouthful. Okay, back to the song.
The Song
Reflecting on the original song, Amy Grant shared in an interview: “I wrote Tennessee Christmas with Gary Chapman,” she says, remembering how the song started. “We were newlyweds. It was a long time ago. We wrote that the summer of 1983. We were driving south on Hillsboro Road out of Nashville toward Franklin. And I knew I was about to make a Christmas record. It was a full moon, and the way the moon was shining on the hills, it looked like snow.”
From those simple beginnings, a contemporary classic was born. “We just started singing, without an instrument, the ideas for Tennessee Christmas. We actually wrote the entire song in the car, on that drive,” Amy recalls. “So flash forward — lots of changes in life. Gary and I toasted, coffee cups. I said, ‘I’ve re-cut our song!’ He said, ‘Oh great!’” she laughs.
Tennessee Christmas is the title track of Amy’s latest yuletide collection (2016 album) which also includes a duet with her now husband, Vince Gill, on Baby, It’s Cold Outside.
On that 2016 Christmas album, Tennessee Christmas, the timeless Amy Grant gets a chance to re-visit the title cut, which is something the singer loved getting to do.
“I remember recording it the first time like it was yesterday, but it was thirty-three years ago,” the singer tells Sounds Like Nashville. “I’ve sung that song every Christmas for three-plus decades, and I just wanted to have my ‘grown woman’ voice on it. All those pictures I saw then, I just see from a different perspective now. It was so lovely to get to re-do it – a half step lower,” she says with a smile.
Tennessee Christmas is Grant’s fourth holiday offering. She says that she knows that’s a lot of music, but it’s something that is very much a part of her inner being. “I know it’s crazy to put out so much Christmas material, but it’s just been such a part of my touring life that has stayed the most active. I love the holiday season, and am always thinking ‘What would I want to hear?’ I love cooking, and to me, it’s the musical version of cooking. So, I think ‘What have we not served up yet?’
So, if you’ve got an appetite for some good Southern cooking this Christmas, music-style that is, some Amy GrantChristmas music is what I would most recommend on our menu. You can get a taste below — just click whatever links look most interesting to you.
And enjoy listening to Amy Grant.
Here are some favorite tracks from Spotify, as well as a few classic videos to check out:
First, Amy Grant on Spotify:
Tennessee Christmas (The Song)
A Christmas Album (1983)
Home for Christmas (1992)
Amy Grant Christmas (2019)
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A few classic Amy Grant videos:
Here is a video of Tennessee Christmas performed by Amy Grant on a televised Christmas Special:
Here is It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year performed by Amy Grant on a televised Christmas Special:
Here is Grown-Up Christmas List performed live by Amy Grant: (Amy Grant was the first to record and introduce this song, back in 1992, before others started recording it)
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Full Lyrics
Tennessee Christmas
Come on, weather man,
Give us a forecast snowy white
Can't you hear the prayers
Of every childlike heart tonight
Rockies are calling, Denver snow falling
Somebody said it's four feet deep
But it doesn't matter, give me the laughter
I'm gonna choose to keep.
Another tender Tennessee Christmas
The only Christmas for me
Where the love circles around us
Like the gifts around our tree
Well, I know there's more snow up in Colorado
Than my roof will ever see
But a tender Tennessee Christmas
Is the only Christmas for me.
Every now and then I get a wandering urge to see
Maybe California, maybe Tinsel Town's for me
There's a parade there, we'd have it made there
Bring home a tan for New Year's Eve
Sure sounds inviting, awfully exciting
Still I think I'm gonna keep.
Another tender Tennessee Christmas
The only Christmas for me
Where the love circles around us
Like the gifts around our tree
Well, they say in L.A. It's a warm holiday
It's the only place to be
But a tender Tennessee Christmas
Is the only Christmas for me.
"Tennessee Christmas"
