For the second week in a row, Brenda Lee's "Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree" is leading the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the unofficial Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, is taking note.
Lee first recorded her Christmas hit in 1958 at the tender age of 13. She released a new music video for the song this year to mark its 65th anniversary. The video features cameos by country stars Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood, and the song has been experiencing somewhat of a renaissance this holiday season.
Carey, whose hit "All I Want for Christmas" usually leads the charts this time of year, sent Lee a congratulatory flower arrangement with a handwritten note, Lee shared on X.
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"Dear Ms. Brenda," the card nestled in the white flowers reads. "Congratulations on your history #1. Have a merry Christmas. Love, Mariah."
Lee's hit was among the first major Christmas songs released during the rock 'n' roll era. It was penned by Johnny Marks — who also wrote "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Holly Jolly Christmas" — and produced by Owen Bradley.
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In a recent interview with Salon, Lee told the outlet that while she had been "disappointed" the song didn't initially chart following its release, it certainly came back around.
"I might have been a little disappointed, because we all loved the song so much. And we wanted it to do really good. And when it just didn’t for a minute, we thought, 'Oh, lordy, lordy,'" she told Salon. "But it came through, as good songs do, and now it’s one of the songs that I have to sing every time I sing anywhere."
Lee even recently performed her holiday hit at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena at an event benefiting the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
In the Salon interview, Lee also revealed that her producer, Bradley, tried to make it feel like Christmas when they recorded the song in the sweltering Nashville summer heat way back in 1958.
"But my precious, precious producer Owen Bradley — I walk in the studio, he must have had the air conditioning down to zero," she told Salon. "He had a big Christmas tree. It was all decked out in Christmas lights and everything. And it was just a magical time."
She added that she thinks the song reached a new generation when it showed up in the iconic film "Home Alone."
She said she "got a call one night" from her friends asking if she'd seen the film yet, which she hadn't.
"They said 'Well, your song’s all over it!'" she said.
"I went to the theater and saw it and I was so joyous because I love the songwriter, I love this song," she said. "Of course I loved all my buds that played on it. I was just so proud."
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
