During an appearance on the “Behind The Vinyl” podcast, TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider revealed that he is recording a Christmas song with ex-NIGHTWISH frontwoman Tarja Turunen.
“I wrote this song for my wife many years ago,” he said (hear audio below). “You guys may or may not know that Celine Dion recorded a Christmas song I wrote [called ‘God Bless Us Everyone’]. I wrote it as a gift for my wife; I never wrote it for commercial purposes. And I can’t — it’s just out of my range to sing it. But long story short, I decided to do my own rendition of it, and I asked Tarja to sing it as a duet with me, ’cause it’s got some really high parts in it. So Jeff Pilson from DOKKEN and FOREIGNER, he’s producing it. And we’re just finishing the tracks right now, so we’re gonna start doing the vocals. That’ll come out later this year.”
Dion reportedly heard “God Bless Us Everyone” from a sound engineer and wanted to record it for her first Christmas album, 1998’s “These Are Special Times”. Snider gave his blessing, but he asked that nobody reveal his identity, because he feared Dion would change her mind if she discovered the man behind the tune was a controversial rocker. The song, retitled “The Magic Of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)”, went on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.