The Hives and Cyndi Lauper Songs - A Christmas Duel Lyrics

The Hives and Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel

The Hives and Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Single Release Only
Released: 2008

A Christmas Duel Lyrics

A Christmas Duel Song Chart

This Christmas duet by the Swedish rock band The Hives and American singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper was released as a single on November 19, 2008. It peaked at #4 on the Swedish Singles Charts.

The Hives' lead singer Pelle Almqvist explained to Rolling Stone the reason they did a Christmas song: "Growing up, it was only 'O Holy Night,' which I really like now but being a young punk, it was the enemy," he said. "I think Christmas is just our excuse to go full-out Phil Spector and use two drum kits and the bells and whistles. We wanted to have this juxtaposition of really sweet music and nasty lyrics."

So why did the Swedish rockers draft in Cyndi Lauper to help with the call-and-response verses? "We came up with the song and we figured it was a duet, and we'd always hoped to do a duet with Cyndi Lauper. We thought she had a really cool voice," Alqvist explained. "We listened to her first album a lot on the tour bus."

Cyndi Lauper recalled the recording during a Reddit AMA:

"I wasn't even going to go that day, because I wasn't feeling good, and I took a lot of vitamin C - I was on the punishment bus- it was one of those English buses with a smelly bus driver who kept his smelly clothes on the bottom and didn't change the freaking toilet water, it felt like I was livin' in the subway."

"I got to Sweden and I was very excited, because i was going to work with the Hives - we went to go see them, and at first I was like 'It's REALLY dirty' and then they played me these other songs that were really funny and dirty - and then I thought 'as long as my son doesn't hear these, they're funny.' We had a blast doing them, and then a year later, my son came up to me and said 'Really mom? Really?!'"