JIMMY FALLON: "Holiday Seasoning"

Hello, my friend. So have you been enjoying autumn? Have you slowed down at all? Slowed the hurried pace that perhaps you've become accustomed to over the summer months, going here, going there, never slowing down. I hope you've had a chance to slow down. I hope you've been able to breathe a little deeper, close your eyes a little longer, linger over your hot coffee or your cup of tea, catch up on doing nothing. Because these times of rest don't last long. The holidays are coming up fast from

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited we do. We're here to talk about your Christmas album Holiday seasoning. Because whether you're in New York City or anywhere in America, if you're listening to Christmas music, you're listening to Delilah, and you know it goes the Baby and the Manger, you know, Jesus and then Santa and then Delilah agree. And now you're kind of you're moving your way up there with this Christmas album that just you just keep adding more goodness. Do it.

I'm trying to make you know, keep it, because I can't even believe that I could say that I have my own Christmas album because.

Growing up you're so damn talented.

I'm better doing an impression than I am at my own voice.

It's a tricky thing. It's like when you grow up.

The way my whole career started is that my mom heard about an impression contest on the radio. Actually it was it was just the funniest person in the Hudson Valley at Bananas Comedy Club. And my mom was like, I hear you do all those voices in your bedroom, Like you should do a bunch of those voice I go, all right, I will.

Then I go, what else are you hearing in my bedroom?

But anyway, aren't you glad you grew up before cell phones?

Oh?

Aren't you glad? Jimmy, You're yeah, look, because you're such a show off, you would have been filming things that you should not have been filming.

Oh completely, by the way, Yeah, I wouldn't. I didn't even know if I would have read books or gone to school. I mean honestly, I would have said, like, no, this is it. I mean with a just a dream of that being the thing.

I think. I don't know what.

I can be a star of my own show. I can film, yeah, my voices, and I don't need an education.

Yeah, I did the other way I did. I was doing stand up. I ended up winning that contest. I did impressions of like all these different people that were famous.

At the time.

Oh, who was your best.

Gosh at the time. I know I had a pee wee Hermann joke. That was the closer. I think.

I did Bullwinkle, I did Casey Casem. I mean these are dated impressions. I did Travolta.

I started.

I go like I was looking for a different celebrity to be a sponsor of these troll dolls, and like, all right, let's start the auditions first up John Travolta, and I go like, geez, like.

Sweet guy, I mean, like who does this hair? Like this hair so fresh in this doll? Like you mean like, I can't believe this thing will be you know whatever.

And then I go next up Jerry Seinfeld, and I go, okay, who applies with these dolls?

What are you doing with They say in the arms and legs don't move. What kind of a doll is this? You know? And I would just go down the list and.

You know at the end, so what you're saying is you're the reason troll dolls came back. You're the reason for the trolls movie.

It's I. I put it out there, you put it.

In the universe, and the universe answered. And now my grandkids all have troll everything.

It is the biggest thing ever.

And you know what's funny is that Mi we know justin Timberlake, you know, and he's the he's branch, he's the lead troll.

You should know. I mean, you're sour grape and vegetaie.

Yeah.

Yeah. And Poppy, Poppy is is like the cool troll girl.

Yes, Poppy is great too. My kids could care less that he is branched. They don't understand it. They don't care, they don't under They go, I go, he is the voice, he is branch, and they go, yeah, it doesn't it's.

Not clicking yet. How old are they?

They are twenty three and twenty five.

And they just don't care. No, they're not.

No, I'm not their babies, but but they just don't.

They don't get or the like olof was not a voice.

Is olof yeah yeah.

And the only thing that's impressive really they can't say this is.

Well, when you get home, you got to put on the veggietails the story of Abraham and Sea. And you don't even have to say yeah, you don't have to say I interviewed or Delilah interviewed me today on a podcast.

Is that a guitar behind you?

Do you play the I have several guitars, and no, I don't. I don't. Everyone in my family, Jimmy is musical, everyone not you except for me. And I write songs. I write songs in my head all day all night. I hear the instruments, I hear where the I hear where the you know the keys come in. I hear it, I write it. I and I cannot write and I cannot play a single freaking note.

Oh you and Michael Jackson.

I have a three note range when it comes to singing.

If you can give volumes.

It's it's a lot of volume. I got lots of volume, dude, But I got no freaking talent.

It's it's been a Problemating song is a big deal. It's hard to do.

I I've had this problem my whole life. I am a show off. I was born with the show off, Jean, I probably have more genetic show off than you do, and I got no talent.

I disagree, but yeah, I think so why.

Radio works for me? I don't have to dance, I don't have to sing, I don't have to play the guitar. I don't have to I don't have to have any talent.

Did you should practice though in your bedroom when you were growing up and pretend you're on the radio?

Oh yeah, oh gosh, yeah, of course I had the I had the cassette recorder that my dad got me and so, and I had a neighbor, Dellan, that loved to play the game with me. So he would record like a newscast or whatever, and then send the cassette over and I would record like commercials and me too. Yeah.

I love the most fun thing.

I want to find those tapes because I have, like I had real to real tapes too, because you could record longer in.

The longer longer.

Yeah, and so because that's for like ninety minutes.

I found some of my old real to real tapes in a basement of a home I was cleaning out, and I I gotta show. I got to convert these and play them me too.

I forgot what I even talked about, but me and my friend Joey Gonzalez would like report the news and talk about or do something, or be fake DJs or cut tooon.

You know. We didn't even like have music or anything. It was just I don't know what we were doing.

I would listen to because I lived in a tiny town in Oregon and we didn't really have much radio. I I bought the one radio station that exists there. But when I was a kid, I would listen to stations out of San Francisco and out of Seattle, clear channel stations back when clear channel meant, you know, there was nobody else on the channel. And and then I would listen to like Wolfman Jack.

Oh yeah, yeah, right, I love Wolfman Jack.

He would interrupt the song movie playing, and he'd like, all right, that's the ronets in the middle of it.

In the middle of the song is like, shu shuit, you're stepping on your stepping on the vocals.

What are you doing? Wolf?

But he was wolf Man.

Imagine if anyone did that today.

Yeah, well, nobody's except for me real anymore. Today on the air, I'm actually in the studio.

I can prove to everyone I actually am seeing you. You are real, You're not Elilah is not an AI bot.

And and I don't call it in you know, I don't just go in the studio and record some stuff like some of my competitors do. Well, I'm actually here in the studio taking colors, and.

You're interested and yeah, and you get in there and.

I love it. I stinking love it.

You crush at it so good. I'm happy you love it.

And you crush at this Christmas thing. So let's talk about the Jonas brothers, can we?

Yeah? You know, I wanted to write a comedy record.

That's just like originally, what happened is my friend said you should do a Christmas album called like twelve Days of Christmas Sweaters and do cover songs of.

All these songs.

They go, Okay, that's just sounds like a good idea, and then when I started recording and it was fine, I wasn't that great.

To be honest, I wasn't. You weren't feeling It.

Was like, you know, I'm not anything better than what Michael Buble is doing or Kelly Clarkson or you know, so why am I even doing?

This? Is not my wheel?

So like, I don't think this is right, And so I said, well, I have an I did for a comedy song. Then they go, yeah, we can record that.

So I recorded that and then okay, the Dolly Pardon song you did? Is it too early for Christmas yet? You know?

Brilliant?

Because every year people are like, Delilah, when need you going to start playing Christmas music? I'm like, it's fourth of July people, I was watching fireworks. Would you stop?

I mean, it's too early.

And you do a song with Dolly who is like, you know, hard candy Christmas, and.

Dolly Parton was unb believable. She's unbelievable to me.

She's perfectly perfect, and she's gorgeous and she's charming, and she's not I actually went to Dollywood.

Have you done that yet?

I have not done that yet, but Dollie, I've I've had her on a couple of podcasts and on my show, and she's just like so darling.

And she just makes you feel good and you go, oh my gosh. And so I pictured this song. I go, will you do this song? It's almost too early for Christmas? And it's basically like a joke on when it is too early, like and we release it and like Halloween or something. She's like, that's great, would you do a song on my Christmas album? And I can't eve believe I'm talking to Dolly Parton, So I go, of course,

This is what I grew up with. So I go, I think she wants me to.

Do, like All I Want for Christmas is my too front tea.

So I can with you maw christmath correct exactly.

So I go, I love to do it. So she gets me the thing and it's it's the Mariah Carey song All I Want for Christmas is you. I go, oh, Dolly, I think you got the wrong person. I don't even know if I could hit these notes. I mean, you're gonna have to autotune this one.

Did she have to autotune it? Or did you hit them?

She'd no, she saved me. But she did the high notes and I did the low notes and we harmonized. But we did do the Mariah song and I broke a vein, a blood vessel hopped out of my head like I was a wrestler because I was trying to hit these notes.

I was going like she was so bad. I was like, oh, she's going to cancel this, But.

She made it work because she's Dolly, because.

She's Dolly Parton. But we have So we have Dolly Parton, we have Ariana Grande, we have I do a song with Carl Delvine called Hallmark Movie. And the idea is that I think we're in a Hallmark movie. I own a hardware store and she's a princess and she has to save my business, and I.

Go, oh my gosh, we're in a Hallmark movie.

And then she reaches for a knife, and I go, oh my gosh, we're actually in a Lifetime movie.

So that's that's that song. So I mean, they're all they're all comedy songs.

I wrote a I was trying to think of a funny New Year's Eve song because everything's so sad on New Year's Eve.

All ding zignld Yeah. Yeah, I met my old love in the grocery store. Yeah.

I love that song, but it's sad. It's like, what's the party song? So I go, what's the genre that just makes you just have to smile? And I think it's polka. There's no sad polka.

So you want to hear a crazy polka story.

Yeah.

When I started my radio career, I was in junior high and high school. One of the features in my little town was the Scandinavian Hour on weekend mornings. I love these shows. I had to play the hornky dornky snorky polka song by Hans Franz and the Snorkelers or whatever, and I had to pronounce these names Jimmy.

Yeah, Urgen by Urgin Durgin. That's so funny. I know those hours.

And every now and then we have I have a battery power radio where every now and then I'll just turn it on just to listen to a weird station or something or see if AM still exists, you know, And I.

Just and I heard this.

I think it was an Irish show maybe a month ago, and I loved it.

I'd listened to the whole thing.

And so you did a polka song that if I still did that show, I could play over and over.

Oh, I would love it because it would be the number one song. It's me and guess who weird? Al Yankovic. We did the song with the Roots. It's called the New Year's Eve Polka and it goes ten nine, eight, seven, six, five four three two one.

Better bet bet better, bet bet bet bit better, better better.

It's really fun and it's like just it's positive and happy and it's a party song. And I made sure to put it on side too. It's the first track on side to the vinyl, just in case someone's a little drunk in DJing New Year's Eve and go what is it?

The third song? What is it?

I can't see the groups? You know, it's this first song, second side. Put it on, turn the volume up, get the party going.

Get the party going. And if pre order like from Target, right, they can get the colored vinyl.

Yes, it's they did. Everything is a pepper.

Red or red or something funny, something sweet.

Yes, the first The one thing you can get right now is candy cane vinyl, so it's red and white candy cane. It's the cool The fact that they made it is awesome. It looks so festive in holiday. And then the target one is ruby red.

It looks just like a candy dapple almost. It's gorgeous. Uh.

And then we have another deluxe version coming out that looks like a snowy mountaintop. It's like a bluish white snow thing and has a big pop up thing. If you open the album, it has pop up of me holding a lollipop in the middle.

So people won't have to like buy decorations, they can just buy the album.

There stopped doing Every year my grandma stopped putting up the tree. She would buy this tiny, weird thing that came in a box and just take it out and plug it in.

It was so sad. Do you think Charlie Brown is sad? This thing was sad? I don't know. I don't even know if it was.

It just lit up and I go, I guess it counts as a tree. Where is your holiday spirit?

Grandma? Yeah?

But once your grandma, you're just hired. You don't want to take the put the crop up and take it down and da da da da da.

You know, if someone was asking me what smells do I remember from the holidays or what you know, and like is it food? Is it? Turkey? Is it? And for me it was mildew. Because I want to tell you why though my parents had this.

We had a fake tree that we would put up every year, and then we'd store it in the basement.

Where it was damp and moldy and mill blewy, yes, and so your asthma would kick in and you would spend the holiday season in bed with a fever, coughing your lungs out, unable to breathe.

And we liked it.

That was That's how we loved it. I looked forward to the smell every year. I go, it smells like Christmas And it was asbestos.

It was we were.

Slowly slightly dying from the Christmas tree completely.

Yeah, ApoA Long River it is.

Yeah. It was terrible.

By the way, I signed all these album like inserts of like I wish I could show it to you, like it looks like a picture of me from the nineteen fifties or something if I existed, And then I signed a bunch of them vinyl, and then they said, can you sign three thousand for CDs?

And I go. People still buy CDs. It's a giant thing.

It's a big thing. Stirring up excitement with Jimmy Fallon today for his upcoming album Holiday Seasoning will ladle out a little more of the conversation. But I need to give a spoonful of lovin to another podcast sponsor first. Mercy Ships has been transforming lives for over four forty years. Many people in our world have no access to healthcare and as a result, they must endure pain and suffering. But with the support of volunteers and donors, Mercy Ships

I have Vinyl.

I always I never quite got rid of my Vinyl. I always had like a good little collection. I always had, like for me, it was big. But I think I had probably thirty albums or something that was a big deal in high school. I never threw them away, and so I did Vinyl.

But what's the first what's the first album you ever bought?

Uh? That I tell people?

Yeah, me, it's Confession Session. First album that was your own, not a forty five album like album. Yeah.

Uh, Paul McCartney Pipes of Peace. Maybe.

I think the first album I think I asked for that I got it was meant at work, Cargo and my aunt got it for me.

So I didn't buy that myself.

My first I think my first one was I was really into Paul McCartney, so I got all Paul McCartney stuff. He was like, you know was big when I was at that time.

You're still so young, Mike, what what was I've been fired ten times by the time came out. Okay, I'd already been there, Miller.

No.

My first album I bought with my own money, which was extremely expensive at the time, was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Oh that's a great one.

Yeah. I bought dream about Annie Heart. I bought Heart Goodbye Yellow Road, Dog in a Butterfly.

And I had Heart on the show Delighted. You would have loved this.

Heart came on the show, and it was during the eclipse, the solar eclipse, and I went out in the on the outside here and thirty Rock on the eleventh floor outside and we're saying total eclipse of the Heart with Heart.

With Heart during the during the eclipse. That is very cool. But I was obsessed with them. They're so freaking talented.

So cool, by the way, even talking, their actual talking voices are cool.

You know that.

Yeah, Yeah, And they're just badass. They're so bad ass.

Hi, Nancy, how you doing. She's like, hello, how's it?

And you go, no way, that's your voice, Like you're so cool. You just get out cool, then you go, I gotta leave the room.

So you got to do a Christmas song with them next year.

That's if this one works, then yes, hopefully I will do one with them.

I'll pitch one to you. Let's do one together, let's think of this will be.

Your debut, my debut, my three note debut. Yeah, it's got to be something with three notes, you know, like I can get most of the notes in Happy Birthday, but not all of them.

As long as you're not hitting the harmony at the end.

Yeah. Yeah, Jimmy Fallon, go enjoy a very seasoned, deliciously delightful holiday.

You are the best, and I'm so I had so much fun. I cannot wait to talk to you again. And thank you, thank you, thank you so much. And let's let's work on that song. It's work on that song. Let's and let's see what Hard is up to. Okay, I loved it.

It was so fun.

Thank you for joining us today and spicing up our playlist with holiday seasoning. Jimmy Fallon's holiday comedy album, featuring a sleigh full of original music from the biggest musicians and comedians on Santa's list releases on November first. It will be available on all digital streaming platforms as well a variety of physical variants. The D two C exclusive

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