Must Be Santa
Ritual, in an unsmoothed voice
This is a song meant to be sung: a call-and-answer structure, festive chorus and accordion make joining in more important than listening. The lead voice is not smooth, and precisely because of that, the season’s cheer turns from ritual back into a specific act by specific people.
Singing Christmas standards looks farthest from authorship, yet it extends the thread of Dylan the interpreter: traditional songs are common property, and the way of entering them is itself expression. It recalls the oldest definition of folk song—songs that get sung again and again.
READ THE COMPLETE OFFICIAL LYRICSOriginal editorial interpretation: one possible listening perspective, not a claim to the songwriter’s definitive intention.
