Songfacts®:

• Charles Brown was a Texas blues musician who recorded the popular R&B Christmas song "Merry Christmas Baby" in 1947. "Please Come Home For Christmas" is a very melancholy Christmas song, as the singer has lost his girl and finds himself unbearably lonely over the holidays. Brown wrote it with Gene Redd, who was a New York producer that went on to guide the career of Kool & the Gang.
• Many artists have covered this song, with the Eagles taking it to #18 in the US in 1978. Bon Jovi did a popular version for the charity compilation A Very Special Christmas 2, and other artists to record it include Mariah Carey, James Brown, Luther Vandross, Etta James, Harry Connick, Jr., and B.B. King.
  
  Pat Benatar recorded the song in 1990 for the coalition troops serving in the Gulf War.
• George Ezra reworked the song in 2021 exclusively on Amazon Music. His version, titled "Come On Home For Christmas," adds a new chorus and bridge. Ezra's additional lyrics emphasize how lonely he will be this Christmas without his girl as he pleads with her to come home.
  
  The English singer's version peaked at #8 on the UK singles chart. It follows in the footsteps of other artists who successfully revived classic festive tunes for Amazon; they include Jess Glynne's rendition of "This Christmas" and Ellie Goulding's "River."
  
  Ezra released his take on Charles Brown's song to all streaming platforms in November 2022.
• George Ezra penned the revised version with his writing partner Joel Pott. "The original is really warm and it's a cozy song - we were working through the song and realized it didn't have a chorus and then we started writing a bit of a vocal hook at the beginning," he told the BBC.
• When Ezra recorded the song in September 2021, he persuaded everybody to get into the festive spirit. "We all got into the studio with the band, but we agreed to come in our Christmas jumpers," he said. "Studios don't often have windows so you don't know what's going on outside - once we got the Christmas tree up in there it might as well have been December."
• Rock band The Offspring recorded their version of this Charles Brown holiday classic for the 2022 festive season. Titled "Bells Will Be Ringing (Please Come Home For Christmas)," their take largely stays faithful to the 1960 original, with vocalist Dexter Holland supported by a backing choir. It's their second Christmas single, following the band's 2020 rendition of Darlene Love's 1963 yuletide standard "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." Holland chose "Please Come Home For Christmas" because it follows the "coming home for Christmas" theme.