Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
He's checking it twice
He's going to find out
Who's naughty and nice, Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows when you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

Hello and welcome to Learning English with Lyrics, the podcast where we break down English language song lyrics to help you improve your English! I am your host Jake. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, welcome! If you haven't already, I'd recommend pausing the podcast right here, and going back to listen to the episode titled "Introduction" for a very brief overview of what this podcast is all about. Alright, let's get started!

On today's very special episode, we're going to work through a classic Christmas song, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town". This is a very old song, written back in the 1930s, and has been performed by many, many artists throughout the years. I'll post a link to a version that I like, but feel free to look and see if your favorite artist has sung a cover of the song!

Alright, let's get to our song!

Now I'm sure most of you are aware of who "Santa Claus" is, but just in case you aren't  Santa Claus is a character from legend, who is said to travel throughout the entire world on Christmas Eve, delivering presents to children who have been good throughout the year.

This song, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", is a silly, but very nostalgic song, that warns children to behave so that Santa Claus will bring them Christmas presents!

I want to very quickly note, that the word "comin'" in the title of the song is not a real word. The actual word is "coming". "Comin'" is a very casual way to say "coming". I would not recommend using "comin'" at all. In fact, for the rest of this episode, I'll change "comin'" to "coming". Let's get to the first few lines of the song.

We start out our song with three warnings.

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout"

These are, quite simply, three things that children shouldn't do! Or, at least we'd prefer that they didn't do. Unfortunately, none of these three warnings are grammatically correct. Can you see the problem? Instead of saying "You better watch out", what they should say is "You HAD better watch out". That's easy enough to fix! So, what does it mean that "you had better" or "you'd better" watch out?

There are a couple of things that we need to talk about here. The first one is the word "better". This is kind of an odd usage. Usually "better" means "more good". "He is better at basketball than me." "I got a better grade than she did." "These are better cookies than those cookies." The phrase "had better" doesn't exactly mean that, though it is related. If you had "better" do something, that means the same thing as saying that you "should" do something. In fact, you can read it as "It would be better if you did this..." That is to say, it's better that you do this than to not do it. And if it's better that you do one thing instead of another thing, obviously you SHOULD do the better thing. "I had better make sure that the oven is off before I leave the house." "I had better walk the dog." "I had better call my mom." This is a great phrase to add into your vocabulary, it will help add some variety to your language and makes you sound more comfortable in English.

The next thing we want to talk about is the phrase "watch out". This is a pretty useful phrase as well. To "watch out" means to "watch out FOR something or someone". This means that you should be looking for that thing or that person and you should be wary of that thing or that person, because it or they might cause you harm. For example if you were a criminal, I could say to you, "You'd better watch out for the police!" Or if I am afraid of bees for example, I should watch out for beehives! To watch out is similar to the phrase "to keep an eye out". It means to be on guard. To be ready for. To be wary of.

In our song, it's not really clear what the kids should watching out for. Should they be watching out for Santa, because he might catch them doing something bad? Or should they be watching out for their own bad behavior, in order to avoid it? Either way, it carries the same idea. It's a warning to all children to behave well!

The next two warnings are pretty simple. You'd better not cry, and you'd better not pout.

Pouting is when you are mad that something didn't happen the way that you wanted it to happen. This is very common with children. Perhaps a child wanted ice cream for dinner, but they had to eat peas instead. Perhaps they wanted to watch TV, but had to do their homework instead. Many times, when they don't get what they want, a child will pout. To be honest, many adults do this as well! Pouting is when you are mad, or frustrated, or sad, and you want everyone to know it! You have a general attitude of unhappiness and it's clear that it's because you are not pleased. Usually it's because you didn't "get your way", that is to say, you didn't get what you wanted.

You can usually tell a child is pouting by looking at their mouth. Oftentimes, children will push out their bottom lip and have a big frown on their face. We call this a "pouty lip".

Obviously pouting is not good behavior, so the song is trying to discourage kids from pouting, threatening that Santa Claus might not give them presents if they aren't well-behaved!

The next line says

"I'm telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town."

The first part, "I'm telling you why" would probably be better worded as "I am going to tell you why." He's going to explain to the children why they shouldn't do these three things. And why is it? Because Santa Claus is coming to town!

This phrase, "someone is coming to town" is a great phrase that you can use no matter where you live, whether in a town or a gigantic city or in a small village. The phrase stays the same no matter where you live. You always use the word "town". It simply means "Someone is coming to where we live." It's very common during holiday time for family and friends to "come into town". Who comes into town when you are celebrating a holiday?

Now we come to what is perhaps the most famous line of this song.

"He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's going to find out who's naughty and nice."

The "He" referred to here is of course Santa Claus.

So Santa is making a list and he's checking it twice. What does it mean that he's checking it twice? This just means that he's looking at the list for a second time, to verify that the information is good and accurate. Santa Claus is apparently very thorough and precise! He doesn't want to accidentally give a gift to a bad kid, or to forget to give a gift to a good kid!

The next part says "He's going to find out who's naughty and nice".

This tells us what is on the list. It's a list of the kids who are naughty, and those who are nice. "He's going to find out" is grammatically correct here, but most versions of this song say "He's gonna find out". This is a slang version of the phrase "going to" and it's considered very casual. Definitely do not write that word on your next English exam! Use "going to"

"Being naughty" simply means being bad or disobedient. It is the opposite of being good. We don't use this word a whole lot in American English, most of the time we simply say that someone has been "bad".

There aren't any verses in this song, it's mostly just this chorus It's a very simple song. But in between the two times that we sing this chorus, there is a very small part where the song talks a little bit more about Santa Claus, and warns the kids once again. It says:

"He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake."

This is another part of the song that's meant to scare kids a little bit. It explains that Santa Claus is watching them all the time, even at night, so he always knows if they are behaving or if they aren't behaving. The grammar and vocabulary here is pretty simple, but I do want to talk about the last four of five words. "Be good for goodness sake".

This is a bit of a play on words, as you can tell by the use of the words "good" and "goodness". To "be good" means to behave, the opposite of "being bad". But what does "for goodness sake" mean?

"For goodness sake" is an exclamation of frustration or annoyance. The words themselves don't matter too much, this is simply meant to express that you are annoyed or bothered. It's very commonly directed at children who aren't listening or aren't obeying. For example, if you're trying to leave the house, and your 5 year old refuses to put his shoes on, you might say "Put your shoes on for goodness sake!". It's a strong hint to child that you are frustrated. In the case of our song, it's saying, essentially, "Just be good! It's not that hard! Stop making your parents crazy!" It's not meant to sound angry at all in the song, it's just a rather cute way to tell a child to behave!

I hope that you enjoyed today's special episode, and that you'll join us next time, as we explore one final Christmas song before Christmas gets here. I hope that the rest of your day goes well, and remember: be good for goodness sake!

As always, you can find the transcript for this episode in the description. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate it and subscribe! We post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday! And of course, don't forget to tell your friends about us! We would love to hear from you! e pot even more English learning related content every day on Instagram, username "lelpodcast". There you can interact with us, as well as other English learners. There are weekly questions, as well as helpful images related to our podcast episodes. We’re also active on Reddit and Twitter under the same username, lelpodcast. Finally, if you have any questions, comments, critiques, or suggestions for songs, send us a message to any of our social media accounts, or to our email address "[email protected]". We hope to hear from you soon!