No, Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” Is Not a Christmas Song

One of the rare classic rock songs in the Christmas music canon is “Holiday Road” by Lindsey Buckingham. The melody in question is fun. However, it doesn’t deserve its place in a Christmas playlist.

Lindsey Buckingham’s ‘Holiday Road’ is about summer vacation

First, some context. After Mariah Carey “All I want for Christmas is you” became a hit in the 1990s, the Christmas music canon remained almost completely closed for about 20 years. During this period, radio programmers never adopted new songs. However, they have tried to add older songs with questionable ties to Christmas to their holiday playlists.

One of these pieces was Madonna’s “Holiday.” The song in question sounds summery and has nothing to do with Yuletide. Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” was even more popular. The song has nothing to do with Christmas either. In fact, the melody comes from National Lampoon’s Vacationa film about a summer road trip.

‘Holiday Road’ is associated with a film that might be too iconic for its own good

If National Lampoon’s Vacation was just another forgettable 1980s comedy, it would be easy to recontextualize it as a Christmas song. However, National Lampoon’s Vacation is emblematic. Some jokes will stick with you years after you’ve seen them. Therefore, it is difficult to connect “Holiday Road” to anything other than Clark W. Griswold and his Wagon Queen Family Truckster.

National Lampoon’s Vacation had a sequel called National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Perhaps this film created a false association between “Holiday Road” and Christmas. However, “Holiday Road” does not appear in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

What Lindsey Buckingham was thinking when he wrote the song

During a 2018 interview with StereogumBuckingham discussed getting the assignment to write “Holiday Road.” “It happens a lot though when you’re doing something where you perceive the stakes to be quite low, when you’re doing something that’s out of your basic wheelhouse,” he said. “(Director) Harold Ramis called me and asked if I would write an opening and a second song to revisit the theme song, which was ‘Dancin’ Across the USA,’ my attempt to recreate the Mills Brothers. It’s one of those things, you almost want to say, “I don’t do that.” It was not part of my discipline. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but it was also liberating because he wanted me to try.

Buckingham recalled Ramis’ reaction to the track. “We came up with this thing, and I remember very clearly him coming into the studio with some of his people, producers, Matty (Simmons), I think, and hearing this song for the first time.” , he declared. “He was literally blown away by how effective the film was and how certain topics were covered, without me even having seen the film.”

“Holiday Road” became one of Buckingham’s only hits without Fleetwood Mac. On top of that, holiday songs seem to live forever. For this reason, it’s entirely possible that all of his solo music – and even all of Fleetwood Mac’s music – will disappear into the ether while “Holiday Road” remains a seasonal favorite. It’s weird. And all because people don’t seem to understand that Buckingham used the word “holiday” in the British sense to mean vacation.

“Holiday Road” works very well as a song for National Lampoon’s Vacation — and a poor Christmas song.