Paul McCartney Drops In On Bruce Springsteen's 'SNL' "Santa Clause Is Coming To Town" Finale

McCartney's role was extremely minor on the night, simply taking up some sleigh bells and joyously singing along with the band. The E Street Band tore through "The Ties That Bind" and "Meet Me in The City" before closing out the night with its iconic version of the Christmas song.

Watch below.

This is not the first time the Beatle has joined the cast for a closeout Christmas performance. In fact, it's basically a tradition to have Sir McCartney on the program for the Holidays in some capacity.

In 2013 he joined Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon for a rendition of "Joy To The World" during which David Bowie and Bob Dylan were suppose to show up but were "stuck in the Lincoln tunnel" forcing Fallon to do impersonations of them all.

Nirvana reunited in 2012 with McCartney fronting the reassembled band and doing his best to fill the shoes of Kurt Cobain. They performed the original collaborative track "Cut Me Some Slack," which made it onto Dave Grohl's Sound City album. That was just a week prior to McCartney's actual Christmas performance with host Martin Short.

In 2010 Paul McCartney stole the spotlight from another Paul -- host Paul Rudd -- performing a slew of Wings hits including "Jet" and "Man On The Run."

Last year there was no Christmas appearance from the Beatle, but that's only because they were saving him for the Season 40 finale, in which he performed "Maybe I'm Amazed."

While this year was far less spectacular it's always fun to see what the cast whips up for the Christmas episode that has become tradition.

Tags

Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Nirvana