The Original • Since 1999

Unbeknownst to me, my goofy little recording of Chewbacca singing “Silent Night,” accompanied by a demo song from a $40 Yamaha keyboard, became a bona fide phenomenon at Christmas 2005, thanks to someone stealing the music for a YTMND site. (Granted, it’s not like I have any room to complain here… but he could have at least spelled “Chewbacca” right!)

I’ve even heard tell that it was played on WGN radio in Chicago and on Fox News. Which would explain how it got to be the #20 all-time YTMND within a month of its creation. But if you ask me, it’s a lot funnier with a little context. (And no, as far as I can tell he’s probably not the erstwhile Iron Maiden guitarist.)

Listen

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At Last, the Full Story Will Now Be Told

Back in 1999 a coworker described saccharine contemporary Christian musician and self-styled Mozart-reincarnate Paul Todd as “Chewbacca,” due to his flowing mane. (I’d have gone with Mufasa myself, but that would be placing accuracy over universal appeal and maximum comedic effect.) Our company was about to release his hideous Christmas album (there, I said it), and he had been spotted in the office.

Inspired, I set about designing a spoof of Paul Todd’s Christmas album cover. Deciding the cover parody in itself was not enough, I took the extra step of producing a track from Chewbacca’s fictional album. Record the cheesy demo track from my crappy little portable keyboard, find some sounds of Chewbacca on the Internet, adjust those sounds to cover all of the necessary pitches for the song, stitch them all together and, voilà: the only Internet meme I’ll probably ever be (partially) responsible for.

YouTube Videos and Other Rip-Offs

It appears that my little musical experiment has now become the soundtrack for some YouTube videos as well. To wit:

• A Chewbacca Christmas
• Merry Christmas from Chewbacca!
• Chewbacca Celebrates Life Day (Uh, OK.)
• Chewbacca Sings Silent Night
• Chewbacca’s Silent Night Duet (Wow, a tribute!)
• Chewbacca (Yikes.)
• Chewbacca Sings Silent Night (Another one.)

It might be nice if some of these people put in half of the effort I did into recording it in the first place, but there you go.

Someone has even made a ringtone out of it. I’m not sure how I would react if I was in public and I heard this emanating from someone’s phone.

A Google search reveals a ton of other links too, sadly all pointing to that damnable YTMND page. I’m not sure why I’m so determined to get credit for this… but I guess I’m really just more determined that the YTMND interloper not get credit for it.

And Finally…

As of November 2008 I’ve just completed my first “serious” Christmas music recording, a track for the RPM Holiday Challenge. You can read more, listen to my jazz arrangement of “Greensleeves,” and even download the MP3 for free here.