The vinyl album will release on December 15th.
Originally released in 1996 on CD, the platinum-selling Christmas Island hit No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart, where it spent 14 weeks and ended up becoming one of 1997’s Top 200 albums. Meanwhile, Christmas Island also spent a staggering 81 weeks on Billboard’s Top Holiday Albums chart, peaking at No. 4.
Christmas Island was Buffett’s first Christmas album, his 21st studio album of 32 studio albums total, and boasts a pair of original tunes, “A Sailor’s Christmas” and “Merry Christmas, Alabama (Never Far from Home),” both co-penned by Buffett himself. The album likewise features covers of seasonal classics such as “Christmas Island,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Up on the House Top,” as well as his takes on the Hawaiian-vibed “Mele Kalikimaka” (made famous by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters) and John Lennon’s protest tune-tuned-holiday-hit produced by Phil Spector, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” and more. “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (aka “Twas The Night Before Christmas”), which was a hidden track on the original CD, also appears in these two vinyl versions.
Reflecting on the album and the significance of the holiday in his life, Buffett wrote in the original liner notes: “For those of you who didn’t know, I was born on Christmas Day 1946, the day W.C. Fields died. I think this only goes to prove that God does have a sense of humor, but being born on Christmas was rough going at first. The most obvious scam was to try and double up on presents… It did not sit well with my mother, who made it known, in no uncertain terms to the aunts, uncles and cousins of the Buffett clan strung out along the Gulf coast, that she expected two presents for her bouncing baby boy-one for his birthday and one for Christmas. On the whole it worked quite well, though there were a few Scrooge like occurrences where I would get socks for my birthday and a tie for Christmas. This probably is the reason I never have liked to wear either since.”
Buffett continued, “Christmas Island is a collection of songs, not ladled over with sugary sentimentality and not too far out there in the strange corridors down which my mind sometimes wanders, and I hope it is what you would expect from the Christmas War baby turned island boy born on the day W.C. Fields died.”
