“Christmas Time’s A-Coming” was written by Tex Logan — a bluegrass fiddler who was also, by day, an engineer at Bell Laboratories — and Bill Monroe recorded it in 1951. It has been a fixture of the bluegrass Christmas season ever since.
The song is bright and headlong, its narrator hurrying home through the snow to family and a holiday welcome, back where he belongs. That blend of warmth and momentum suits bluegrass perfectly, and the number moves at the brisk clip of a string band in full flight.
Monroe’s recording made “Christmas Time’s A-Coming” a bluegrass Christmas standard, recorded countless times since — one of the few holiday songs to come straight out of bluegrass rather than the wider popular tradition.
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