Outside the Lines With Rap Genius - OTL 58: Bill Adler Excerpt #2 "A Sample for 'Christmas in Hollis'" lyrics

Bill Adler: Russell and Lyor said, "Let Bill do it." Fine. I was well suited to the job because I was pretty deep into Christmas music by then, and I had a title and concept that suited the occasion, namely "Christmas in Hollis." I thought, let the guys write a new song, something that speaks to their lives, their neighborhood, and the ways in which they celebrate Christmas. I called up Run and I called up D and I told them about the opportunity and about my little concept, and they both liked it and wrote their rhymes. But the really fun part of it all for me was going to the Chung King studio, which is where Run-DMC had recorded Raising Hell and where they continued to work. Run and D were happy enough to see me, but my mission was to help the crew find some music to sample, which was Jason's job. So Run and D walked off to smoke a joint in the other room, and Jay and I went to work on the crate of Christmas albums I'd lugged into the studio. Jay pawed through it all very quickly. He usually didn't need more than ten seconds or so to decide whether a given track was worthwhile. It was just needle drop -- next! Needle drop -- next! Finally we get to an anthology on Atlantic of Christmas songs in a soulful vein. And Jay puts the needle down on a song called "Backdoor Santa" by an artist named Clarence Carter, and he didn't have to go very deep into it before he thought maybe he had something. The instrumental introduction was enough. It's a hard beat and a funky little horn riff that goes "dah boo datta da, woo vaca vaca, ahh da datta da." He played it once, he played it twice, and by the time he drops the needle for a third time, here come Run and D, who'd been listening with half an ear from the other room. They came in like Heckle and Jeckle. You know, Heckle & Jeckle? They were a pair of wise-cracking cartoon magpies. They'd be flying over a country landscape, talking sh**, when all of a sudden they get a whiff of freshly baked apple pie, which inspires them to drop out of the sky like bombs and land on the window sill where the pie is steaming away. That was Run and D. They knew, just as Jay knew, that "Back Door Santa" was the sample they'd build the song on.