After David Bowie died in 2016, we dis­cov­ered that the musi­cian had a knack for doing impres­sions of fel­low celebri­ties. Could he sing a song in the style of Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and Bruce Spring­steen? Turns out, he could. And yes, he could do an Elvis impres­sion too.

The clip above aired back in 2013 on “This Is Radio Clash,” a radio show host­ed by the Clash’s Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Top­per Head­on. “Hel­lo every­body,” this is David Bowie mak­ing a tele­phone call from the US of A. At this time of the year I can’t help but remem­ber my British-ness and all the jol­ly British folk, so here’s to you and have your­selves a Mer­ry lit­tle Christ­mas and a Hap­py New Year. Thank you very much.”

It’s maybe not as mem­o­rable as his 1977 Christ­mas duet with Bing Cros­by, but, hey, it’s still a fun lit­tle way to get the hol­i­day sea­son in swing.

Bonus: Below hear Bowie sing Pres­ley’s clas­sic “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” I had­n’t heard it before, and it’s a treat.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Sings Impres­sions of Bruce Spring­steen, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits & More In Stu­dio Out­takes (1985)

Watch Bing Crosby’s Final Christ­mas Spe­cial, Fea­tur­ing a Famous Duet with Bowie, and Bowie Intro­duc­ing His New Song, “Heroes” (1977)

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

“Teach your chil­dren well” sang Cros­by, Stills and Nash once upon a long ago, and that adage could be para­phrased as “make sure your stu­dents don’t grow up learn­ing sub­stan­dard pop songs. Give them a real edu­ca­tion.” An enter­pris­ing ele­men­tary school teacher in Mom­bach, a dis­trict of the Rhineland city of Mainz, did so in 2015, dress­ing up his stu­dents from Lemm­chen Ele­men­tary in their own hand­made robot out­fits and teach­ing them to sing the clas­sic 1978 Kraftwerk hit “The Robots” (or “Robot­er” if you own the Ger­man ver­sion, which you can hear below).

While the orig­i­nal prog-rock­ers turned elec­tron­ic demigods tried to strip away as much of their human­i­ty when play­ing live, you just can’t do it with kids. They’re just too cute, and their wob­bly, shuf­fling attempts to be machines only warms the heart more. (Could their par­ents tell who was who, I won­der?) Their ver­sion of the music is sim­i­lar­ly charm­ing and pret­ty faith­ful, though it’s pos­si­bly played by instruc­tor Lars Reimer. (An old­er class shows their faces and plays instru­ments in a more recent video, a cov­er of “Tanz” by Stop­pok.) So yes, Mr. Reimer, you’re pass­ing on some good musi­cal taste.

Though Kraftwerk was often thought of as cold and arti­fi­cial when they first arrived on the inter­na­tion­al music scene, the inter­ven­ing years have only empha­sized the roman­tic beau­ty of their (most­ly major key) melodies. (See for exam­ple the Bal­anes­cu Quartet’s ren­di­tion of the same song below.)

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2016.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ele­men­tary School Kids Sing David Bowie’s “Space Odd­i­ty” & Oth­er Rock Hits: A Cult Clas­sic Record­ed in 1976

Kraftwerk’s First Con­cert: The Begin­ning of the End­less­ly Influ­en­tial Band (1970)

One Man Shows You How to Play Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” with Just One Syn­the­siz­er

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.