Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24

Album: Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996)
Charted: 49
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song originated on Savatage's Dead Winter Dead album in 1995 but became an important hit for the band's side project, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Because Savatage had the well-earned reputation of being an '80s Heavy Metal band, many radio stations were reluctant to play the Christmas offering. In our interview with Jon Oliva, who wrote the song with Robert Kinkel and Paul O'Neill, he recalled: "They never even listened to it. You know how we know? Because the next year we sent the exact same song and put a Christmas tree on the cover and an angel and called it 'Trans-Siberian Orchestra,' and it was #1 on 500 radio stations."

    Under the Savatage moniker, "12/24" peaked at #65 on the Billboard Hot 100. The TSO name brought it to #49 on the same chart a year later and also to #29 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. It's featured on TSO's debut album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories.
  • This song tells the story of a Sarajevo-born cellist (Vedran Smailovic) who returns to his homeland to find it in ruins after the Bosnian War. TSO lyricist Paul O'Neill explained to Christianity Today: "I think what most broke this man's heart was that the destruction was not done by some outside invader or natural disaster—it was done by his own people. At that time, Serbs were shelling Sarajevo every night. Rather than head for the bomb shelters like his family and neighbors, this man went to the town square, climbed onto a pile of rubble that had once been the fountain, took out his cello, and played Mozart and Beethoven as the city was bombed."

    TSO created an instrumental medley of "Carol of the Bells" and "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen" to fit the story. "The orchestra represents one side, the rock band the other, and single cello represents that single individual, that spark of hope," O'Neill said.
  • "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" was used in the "Christmas Wishes" episode of The Office (US version) in 2011.

Comments: 1

  • Ernest Young from MichiganI can't believe I'm the first to comment on this amazing song. I've seen TSO in concert, and the live performance makes it VERY clear that this is a dark song, similar is true for the music video too. However, it's a very moving event that inspired this piece, something beautiful birthed from suffering, like a Phoenix rising from ashes (this song is inspired by a real event, not a fictional character). He played traditional Christmas music, through the afternoon/night of Christmas eve and on Christmas day, while sitting in the destroyed fountain in front of the orchestra hall where he first started his career. I especially love a quote from Verdan himself, at one point during his cello
    At one point he is interviewed by a CNN war correspondent, who asked if he was not crazy for playing his cello while Sarajevo was being shelled. Vedran Smailovic replied, " You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello, why do you not ask if they are crazy for shelling Sarajevo?"
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