Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.
Hundreds of new Christmas songs are released every year, but each time December rolls around, the same small handful of classics races to the top of the charts. Will anything new ever break through?
From Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" to John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," there's a lot of yearning in Christmas songs. But why?
D'Angelo. Brian Wilson. Sly Stone. We lost these greats and so many more in 2025 — singers, producers, conductors and writers whose departures gave us a pang of loss, but whose art still lifts us up.