David Bowie disliked Bing Crosby’s duet choice. A last-minute rewrite became a Christmas classic.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby were always a bit of an unlikely pair. And yet, they proved that when two incredible talents join forces, a splash of magic can happen. Their story also illustrates that it often takes a village to make a song work, and that was exactly the case with their incredibly popular Christmas duet. It was September 1977, and the air in England was just beginning to turn crisp. American crooner Crosby was recording his Christmas special and had agreed to have David Bowie accompany him on the classic “Little Drummer Boy.” But there was a tiny ripple in the plan. ‘A fascinating combination’ In a behind-the-scenes interview posted on PBS, songwriter and composer Alan “Buz” Kohan (who had also written for Michael Jackson and many other artists) shared what went down when Bowie first heard the arrangement. First, Kohan explained that the production company Smith-Hemion thought Bowie and Crosby were a perfect match. They “figured it would be a fascinating combination, since we were shooting in England anyway, to see if we can get some genuine English performers to appear on the show. And we got Twiggy, and we got some other English artists that were basically only known in England; they didn’t actually translate to America.” Bowie’s answer surprised Kohan. “I don’t know why Bowie said yes, but he did because he was Ziggy Stardust at the time, which is about as far away from Bing Crosby as you could get.” Bowie wasn’t feeling it Only there was a bit of a problem. Kohan continued, “We were going to shoot what was ostensibly just ‘Little Drummer Boy.’ And when we got into rehearsal with him, he said, ‘I don’t really like that song.’ Well, OK, I seem to remember that he said, ‘It doesn’t show off my range now.’ I don’t know if that’s why he didn’t like it or he was just not enamored of it. But anyway, we had this arrangement written out and everything, and the track was made, and everything was set.” He and the writing and music team knew they had a job to do and they had to do it quickly. Kohan shared that he told Bowie, “‘Well, let’s just see what we can do to make it palatable for you,’ and Larry Grossman (composer) and I and Ian Fraser, who was the music director, went down to a little room with a piano. And we decided the best way to salvage the arrangement was to do a counter melody that would fit in between the spaces. And maybe write a new bridge and see if we can sell them that.” ‘Peace on Earth’ was born That is exactly what they did in just about an hour. Kohan continued, “It all happened rather rapidly. I would say within an hour we had it written, and we’re able to present it to him again…We played it for him; he says, ‘Yeah, I like that. I can do that. I think that’s good.’ So he spent about that much time rehearsing it with Bing, and we shot it that day. And that was basically how ‘Peace on Earth’ and ‘Little Drummer Boy’ got married, and we had no trouble picking that up that quickly.” Kohan then explained how rapidly Crosby was able to pick up new material. “He was, in addition to being very articulate, a very bright and aware person. He always knew what was going on around him and he always was able to transform himself without losing any of the Crosby-isms, that relaxed that feeling and the atmosphere that he would always create whenever he was on camera. But he used to love to learn new material.” The collaboration has become one of the most beloved holiday tunes of all time. Though the opening spoken intro might feel a bit forced, the music makes it all worth it. Crosby’s warm baritone traditional parts lie like velvet underneath Bowie’s soul-piercing higher register. It was two voices, two songs, two generations, marinating together like high-end ingredients making the finest meal. Two generations collide Billboard shared a 2014 AP article relaying that Bing’s daughter Mary had thoughts right away. Speaking to a summer TV critics tour, she said: “The doors opened and David walked in with his wife. They were both wearing full-length mink coats, they had matching full makeup, and their hair was bright red…We were thinking, ‘Oh my god.’” Bing’s son Nathaniel added, “It almost didn’t happen. I think the producers told him to take the lipstick off and take the earring out. It was just incredible to see the contrast.” The Christmas special Merrie Olde Christmas was released at the end of November that year. Nearly five years later, RCA released the song as a single. It is still played on radio stations around the world today. A ‘quirky’ idea For his part, Bowie was candid about how strange the combination was. In a 1990 promotional interview, he shared, “The idea I thought was so quirky, it was worth doing. I thought it was an extraordinary situation to be in. And I knew that nobody else would probably do that kind of thing. They don’t, do they?”