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One Direction's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" Performance Is Pure Joy
Niall Horan, Harry Styles and the boys sang the holiday classic with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots, backed by toy instruments.
When One Direction, the sensation that first made Niall Horan and Harry Styles famous, was on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon back in 2014, they performed a joyful, jangly rendition of a Christmas classic with Jimmy Fallon and his house band, The Roots.
Their collective cover of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is backed by creative, unconventional classroom instruments—such as a wood block, a toy saxophone, and melodica—featuring a perfectly-harmonized chorus from the 1D boys.
The Voice Coach Horan took the first solo, using a banana rattle as an instrument. Meanwhile, Zayn Malik rocked a triangle, Liam Payne clapped two coconuts together, Louis Tomlinson had a festive mini tambourine, while Harry Styles was on the drums and kazoo. What's not to like?
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What to know about "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"
The first version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was released in 1934, and was written by Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots, and was recorded by Harry Reser and His Band.
According to Reader's Digest, the song was written to lift people's spirits during the Great Depression, and got its first national broadcast at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
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The song has since been covered by Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, The Jackson 5, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Bublé, The Temptations, Neil Diamond, The Carpenters, The Supremes, Mariah Carey, and more.
