KAN -- Kan no Christmas Song（KANのChristmas Song）

I believe that Kentucky Fried Chicken and Christmas in Japan are so closely tied together that the jolly fellow in the red-and-white outfit ought to be dubbed Sanders Claus. Yup, the Holiday season in my old home will have the Colonel bringing over his huge sack of barrels and boxes of chicken delivered by eight reindeer and eleven herbs and spices.

The thing is, though, that I had assumed that Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）was the singer who had the monopoly on Xmas-y theme tunes for KFC, thanks to "Suteki na Holiday"（すてきなホリデイ）. But I was wrong. Actually, several years in the early 1990s, none other than singer-songwriter KAN came up with his own jingle for Colonel Sanders in the form of the simply titled "Kan no Christmas Song" (Kan's Christmas Song).

A short and sweet doo-wop tune, according to J-Wiki, KAN whipped up his tribute to the Yuletide based on "The Longest Time" by Billy Joel, the singer that KAN has a ton of love and respect for. I even found out that although Joel did all of the different voices for "The Longest Time", KAN had the assistance of Joey McCoy and Wornell Jones as backing vocals during recording.

"Kan no Christmas Song" was the coupling song for the singer's October 1992 single "Shinu made Kimi wo Hanasanai"（死ぬまで君を離さない...Won't Let You Go Until I Die）. That CD went up to No. 18 on Oricon. Both songs were also planted into KAN's 7th original album "TOKYOMAN" from 1993 which peaked at No. 3.

If you like, feel free to compare "The Longest Time" and KAN's Xmas opus. Grab a drumstick, while you're at it.