Verdict
The combination of two of the king's greatest Christmas songs is truely a timeless release!
(C) RCA Records
RCA Victor continued the string of oldie-singles and released "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!" / "Blue Christmas" on October 26, 1965. Starting on November 12th Billboard listed the single on their "Christmas Chart" for three weeks were it peaked at number 4. Until 1985 "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!" / "Blue Christmas" was listed another 11 times, in January 2019 "Blue Christmas" made a comeback at number 40 of the Billboard Charts due to streaming. The RIAA honored the US sales with Gold (1992) and Platinum (1999). Worldwide the single sold 22 million copies, which translates to 3.3 billion paid streams. Today it's a little known fact that "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!" / "Blue Christmas" is one of the most successful 45s of the king.
The single is not available on the streaming platforms, but both tracks can be found on "Elvis' Christmas Album" (1958). In 2016 the complete Presley catalogue was restored and remastered by Vic Anesini for a boxed set of 60 compact discs called "The Album Collection". Sony Music Entertainment provides the streaming platforms with the same versions of the individual tracks, albeit in 24 bit/90 khz flac. That means, if the platform of your choice supports high resolution audio, you can enjoy the songs in the same quality Sony used to scan and master them. On Spotify, which has a market share of approximately 30% and is the only platform that publishes streaming figures, "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!" accumulates 51 million streams, "Blue Christmas" clocks in at 500 million. While the track on the former a-side performs well, the one on the flipside belongs to the 10 most requested Presley songs on Spotify.
Apart from the track listing the front cover looks exactly like the one of "Blue Christmas" / "Wooden Heart". The backside of the sleeve advertised "Elvis' Christmas Album".
Santa Claus Is Back In Town!
In this great, bluesy song Santa arrives in a black Cadillac and it's up to the imagination of the listener what is meant by "Hang up your pretty stockings and turn off the light - Santa Claus is comin' down your chimney tonight". Obviously Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller completely satisfied the wish to deliver a song suitable for the image of the king of rock'n'roll. "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!" was recorded on September 7, 1957 within seven takes.
Blue Christmas
The rock'n'roll king put this one on tape within three takes on September 5, 1957. The song was written by Bill Hayes and Jay Johnson, the first recorded version was done by Doye O'Dell. It finally got popular by cover versions of Ernest Tubb, Hogo Winterhalter & His Orchestra and Russ Morgan & His Orchestra.