Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Carol, U.S.A.

By Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie
Copyright Larry Spier Music Llc Obo Haven Gillespie Music Pub.
and Emi April Music Inc Obo Emi Feist Catalog Inc.

“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” was written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1933.

It was first sung on Eddie Cantor’s radio show in November 1934.

Table of Contents

Karaoke Video with Lyrics

Lyrics

1. You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He’s making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

2. You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

With little tin horns
and little toy drums
Rooty toot toots
and rummy tum tums
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
Goodness sake

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why

Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming to town

Click on the button to download a PDF file with lyrics to this song for free.

Free karaoke MP3 download

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“Santa Claus is coming to town” free mp3 download (instrumental – 1:50, – 4/4- 150 bpm)

This composition is copyrighted | Licensing by Singing Bell is not available

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Christmas is a time to rejoice, and singing certainly does bring that. This is your chance to teach your children some all-time favorite carols and sing them along yourself, too.

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SantaClausIsComingToTown Singing-Bell

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Song History

“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” was written by American musicians John Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1933.  During the following year, it was released on record and performed live on a radio show by comedian Eddie Cantor, who interestingly had to be convinced to do so by his wife. Cantor’s rendition proved to be so popular that within 24 hours of the broadcast, “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” sold over 500,000 copies (in both print and record forms), which would have made it extremely successful even by present-day standards.

The song remains popular to this day, having been performed by some of the most famous artists in American music history and topping music charts in a number of different decades. In addition, this Christmas carol has been featured in a number of popular Christmas-themed major motion films and even had a celebrity-voiced cartoon made based on it.

Even more outstanding is the fact that this carol, which many people initially didn’t want anything to do with, went on to become one of the highest selling Christmas carol in American music history in addition to being one of “the most-performed holiday songs of all time”.

It is noteworthy that as recently as 2017, a lawsuit was filed by Haven Gillespie’s family asking for 85% ownership of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town”, which they valued to be worth $700,000. In fact during his lifetime Gillespie himself became a millionaire off of the song’s success, despite the fact that at first he and Coots had a difficult time selling the song since it was designed for children.

Santa Claus is coming to town | Free Christmas Carols & Songs
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Santa Claus is coming to town | Free Christmas Carols & Songs
Santa Claus is Coming to Town

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This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. flora

    nice instrumental music

  2. Maria Chichorro

    Greetings! We are an company (Iniziomedia: https://www.iniziomedia.pt/) in Portugal. we like to know if it is possible to use this music track for a promo. we are on the clock. can you give us an answer as soon as possible? pls

    1. Singing Bell

      Hi Maria! Unfortunately this song is copyrighted so we don’t license it. If it was a public domain song, we could license our version of that. 🙁

  3. Jimmy

    Was it written in 1933 or 1934? The article says both in the first few sentences.

  4. Jimmy

    Specifically, the first sentence says it was written in 1932 and first performed in 1934. The second sentence says it was written in 1933.

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