Cher and Darlene Love Reunite for ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ at Tree Lighting

Days after Cher heralded the arrival of the holiday season with a performance alongside Santa Claus at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the icon made Christmas official by closing out the annual Rockefeller Center tree lighting with Darlene Love.

Sixty years after Love first recorded the classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” — which, ironically, had Cher on backup vocals — the two singers reunited once again to re-record that song for Cher’s recent Christmas album. On Wednesday, the singers linked up onstage to give that rendition a live airing:

In October, Love spoke to Rolling Stone and talked about recording both the old (1963) and new  (2023) “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and how the two singers formed a lifelong friendship following that original recording session together. 

“Sonny Bono was working for [Phil] Spector at that time,” Love said. “He was one of those guys that would go get whatever Phil needed. We used to call him ‘The Gopher.’ And then one time, he brought this girl to the session. She was very quiet, very humble, very shy. I said, ‘Sonny, who is that?’ He goes, ‘This is Cher. This is my new girlfriend.’ She was just 17 years old.”

Love continued, “Phil didn’t realize, ‘This is a 17-year-old girl that’s never been in a recording studio before. She’s never recorded. She doesn’t know how to sing background.’ But this is how she started singing.”

As for the new rendition, “The whole thing only took an hour,” Love said. “They legitimately just wanted me to sing it the way I sing it when I perform it live, which is amazing. We got it in just four takes. They said, ‘That’s it. We got what we want.’ And I had no idea what they were going to do with it until I heard the final product, but we sing the verses together in unison. I was really surprised by how wonderful it turned out.”