Jason and Travis Kelce sing the first release from the new Eagles Christmas album

Jason and Travis Kelce made their Christmas carol debut as a brother act in 2023 when they personalized the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” by insulting each other in sibling rivalry in “Fairytale of Philadelphia.”

Now the siblings are back with a new duet from the third Eagles holiday album, A special Philly Christmaswith a song that Dr. Dog’s keyboardist Zach Miller specifically wrote with the brothers in mind.

“It’s Christmas Time (In Cleveland Heights)” shouts the Ohio suburb where the brothers grew up. The Kelces are joined by one of Philadelphia’s most beloved musical acts, Boyz II Men, whose lush, swaying vocals surround the brothers’ less dulcet tones with gossamer sweetness.

The song, out Friday, is the first to be released from the third installment of the Philly Specials series, which raised $3 million last year for the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and other local charities. One song from the album, which also appears Stevie Nicks, Mountain of joyAnd Devon Gilfillianwill be released every Friday until the full album is released on November 29th.

“It’s Christmas Time (In Cleveland Heights)” is the second original Christmas song the Philly Specials team has written in-house since the Offensive Linemen Jason KelceJordan Mailata and Lane Johnson turned on their jingle bells for the first time 2022 A Philly Christmas special. The first was Kelce’s “Santa’s Night,” which the now-retired Eagles center wrote last year A Philly special Christmas special.

For the first Philly Specials album in 2022, Miller wrote piano music to accompany Eagles radio voice Merrill Reese’s recitation of Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” better known as “Twas The Night Before Christmas.”

For this one, Miller did a little more. He created a melancholic Christmas tune in the spirit of holiday classics like “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” writing lyrics for the brothers about the transformation of their hometown while they were away each time to play football. holiday season.

“That’s one of the things I like about Christmas music. A lot of it sounds very sad, but it’s also ‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,'” said Miller, speaking from his home in West Philly this week and singing the title of that eternal Andy Williams holiday.

“Musicians, athletes and a lot of people can relate to not being home for the holidays,” Jason Kelce said in an interview. with The Investigator in September. “So you end up thinking about it and longing for the time you were there.”

“Travis and I have been away from home for so long, and not just because of the holidays,” said the Monday night football analyst and cohost of the New heights podcast“So it means so much more to you when you’re back home for the holidays. And that’s how the song comes across to me. You’re home for Thanksgiving, or for Christmas, and you think, ‘Oh my God, this place has changed a lot.’

“It’s not a complicated song,” he said, “but I think the sentiment behind it is universal for a lot of people. It’s like an R&B version of a Christmas song. When I first listened to it, I didn’t know what it was, but I was like, ‘Man, I just love this song.’ It really touched me.”

Shawn Stockman, Nathan Morris and Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men add delightful vocal flourishes to the arrangement, and Stockman sings the final verse before Wanya Morris embellishes the coda.

“When I found out it was even a possibility to have them on the song, it was surreal,” Kelce said. ‘We’ve had it Patti LaBelle and Amos Lee and a lot of great artists over the years, but Boyz II Men are probably the biggest names I’ve ever sung with. And the song sounds right in their wheelhouse.

Miller, who grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, remembers being 11 and spending afternoons in the study of his family’s home, playing the computer game Lode Rider and listening to the cassette of the 1991 Boyz II Men’s debut Cooleyhighharmony on repeat.

“We’ve come full circle,” says Miller, who is credited with playing drum machine, Mellotron choir, Moog synthesizer and DW600 synthesizer on the track, which also features Philly Special regulars like bassist Anthony Tidd, guitarist Kevin Hanson and saxophonist Immanuel. Wilkins.

Being a key Philly Special player from the start was a thrill, “just being in the orbit” of Kelce, Mailata, Johnson and their ex-Eagle executive producer Connor Barwin, Miller said.

He also praises Charlie Hall, The War On Drugs drummer and producer who is “an incredibly charismatic person who can get a bunch of people together to do something crazy and have a great time doing it.”

The “ongoing challenge” with the Philly Specials project, Miller said with a laugh, “is explaining what it is. It’s like, ‘We made this record of Christmas songs with footballers’ – but it’s actually good.”

In addition to the Kelces and Boyz II Men, “It’s Christmas Time (In Cleveland Heights)” features vocal contributions from the Philly Specials Children’s Choir, made up of children of the project’s musicians and behind-the-scenes players. Including Miller’s son Cyril, 13, and daughter Frieda, 10. And since it stands to reason that Travis Kelce most likely plays the music he and his brother make, Miller had a message for his daughter for important people in his life.

“I have to tell her that, technically, Taylor Swift probably heard her sing. It’s a good possibility. And that’s pretty cool, you know? In a choir of other children.”

She took the news to heart, said her Philly Specials father. “She laughed.”