Songfacts®:

• Pete's dad is Vito, father of Porno For Pyros guitarist Peter DiStefano. The band wrote it after spending some time over the holidays with the DiStefano family and getting some very good news: Vito's cancer was in remission.
  
  The song describes the gathering, with lead singer Perry Farrell recalling the phone call from the doctor - a Christmas miracle.
• Perry Farrell is Jewish, so the weekend with the DiStefano family was both a Christmas and Hanukkah celebration, which he notes in the opening lines. "Jews and Italians live very much alike," he sings, adding that he likes Italian food.
• The band played "Pete's Dad" in 1993 at the Acoustic Christmas concert for the Los Angeles radio station KROQ. This version, along with their performances of "Cook The Rice" and "Pets," were included on the 1994 EP Sadness. In 1995, a remixed version was released as a promotional single. The song remained a rarity until 2023 when Porno For Pyros released it for the holidays while they were preparing for their reunion/farewell tour.
• This isn't the only song in the P4P catalog about Pete's dad. "Good God's Urge," the title track to their 1996 album, is also about him, written after he took a turn for the worse.