track

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Remastered 2010

2010Released
3:34

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Remastered 2010. By Songfacts®.

This is a very unusual Christmas song. Instead of evoking sleigh bells and mistletoe, it asks us to think about those who live in fear, and collectively bring about the end of war. The call to action is the refrain "war is over, if you want it." It's an esoteric but not unfounded concept that John Lennon and Yoko Ono also put forth in "Imagine": If enough people want something to happen, it will. So the idea was to get us to actively desire peace, which could bring about the end of war.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote this in their New York City hotel room and recorded it during the evening of October 28 and into the morning of the 29th, 1971, at the Record Plant in New York. It was released in the US for Christmas, but didn't chart. The next year, it was released in the UK, where it did much better, charting at #4. Eventually, the song became a Christmas classic in America, but it took a while.

John and Yoko spent a lot of time in the late '60s and early '70s working to promote peace. In 1969, they put up billboards in major cities around the world that said, "War is over! (If you want it)." Two years later this slogan became the basis for this song when Lennon decided to make a Christmas record with an anti-war message. John also claimed another inspiration for writing the song: he said he was "sick of 'White Christmas.'"

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Remastered 2010.
DKey
MajorMode
3/4Time Signature
146BPM

Album

The album Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Remastered 2010 is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Remastered 2010.
EMI Catalogue
© 2010 EMI Records Ltd
This Compilation ℗ 2010 EMI Records Ltd

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