‘I almost feel like I’m Beyoncé or Drake’

Jimmy Fallon has been secretly recording a Christmas song, and its video, with Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion, and he merrily debuted the final product on Tuesday’s Tonight Show, a few hours before its official release. Before showing the video for “It Was A… (Masked Christmas),” Fallon described how it came about, starting as a joke song while he was messing around in Manhattan’s Electric Lady Studios in August. 

“I almost feel like I’m Beyoncé or Drake,” Fallon told The Associated Press. “I’ve always wanted to surprise drop a single and now it’s happening. This is crazy what life is.”

Fallon told AP he “wanted to write something reflecting on how tough it was for everyone last year during the holidays and that it’s gonna get better,” and he liked saying “booster” with a Boston accent. He said he hopes people turned off by the pro-vaccination theme of the song will appreciate its spirit — and maybe its keyboard riff. “If we can get people to go get the booster or get the vaccine, that’d be amazing,” Fallon said. “If not, hopefully it just makes people smile and have a good time.”

Christmas songs can be ridiculously lucrative — Paul McCartney earns an estimated $400,000 to $600,000 a year just for “Wonderful Christmastime,” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” nets her an average of $2.6 million a year, according to The Economist. Even if it climbs the charts, Fallon’s song may not age quite as well, given its COVID theme and all. But at the very least he will get to hear himself on the radio, simply having a wonderful Christmas time.