Dominick the Donkey
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Dominick the Donkey is a well known Christmas song written by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg and Lou Monte and first sung by Lou Monte in 1960. For decades the song was only occasionally heard. It was perceived to be too novel for the softer music stations and too old or corny for CHR/Top 40 stations. But beginning in the early 1990s, more contemporary artists began to record Christmas music. As a result, younger skewing radio stations began to feature more Christmas music on their stations, even going wall to wall on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. While there were more Top 40 core artists doing Christmas music by 1992, the stations still needed to play older artists to supplement the newer Christmas music. A few stations found this song and began mixing it into their Christmas rotations. The song got very positive feedback and as a result, this song began to gain airplay in many formats. Many people assume it was a recent recording and do not realize this song has been around for over 40 years. The song is about a donkey who helps Santa Claus bring presents to the kids in Italy.
In late 2006, the song's chorus was played extensively on The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1 due to the names of the show's newsreader (Dominic Byrne) and "The Italian Christmas Donkey" being the same. It also made a comeback in Christmas 2007.
Dominick the Donkey is still a year round favorite of traders at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange thanks to Santa's helper DGZ.
