The duet between Bing Crosby and David Bowie where Bing sings "The Little Drummer Boy" and David sings "Peace on Earth" has become a standard on radio stations at Christmastime. David Bowie performed on the Bing Crosby Christmas special because he was trying to normalize his career and because his mother liked Bing Crosby. Since he didn't want to sing "The Little Drummer Boy," his song was specially written for him by Ian Fraser, Larry Grossman and Buz Kohan. RCA later released the soundtrack on a single in 1982.
In several interviews in the 2000s, Bowie laughingly said that his recollection of appearing on this show and singing with Crosby is relatively vague as he Bowie himself was battling drug and alcohol addictions at the time. However he did admit that whilst he found Crosby to be amiable, pleasant and polite, he also found him to be a bit distant and detached. Bowie did wonder if this was because Crosby was 74 years old at the time and maybe his mind was wandering or if because he didn't know who Bowie was, although it is now believed that Crosby was more informed on the music of the era than some gave him credit for and that the death of Elvis Presley less than a month previously was making him start to think deeply about his own mortality.