Darlene Love Reveals Her Favorite Cover of 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)': It's Totally Different' (Exclusive)

The music legend opens up about her signature song in PEOPLE's exclusive preview of her appearance on 'Behind the Table,' the after-show podcast from 'The View'

In the 60 years since Darlene Love's beloved song "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" was release, many artists have recored their own versions of it, including Mariah Carey, Michael Bublé, Leona Lewis, the Foo Fighters, Jon Bon Jovi and most recently, Cher. But only one tune reigns supreme in Love's eyes.

PEOPLE has an exclusive sneak peek at Love's appearance on The View's Behind the Table podcast, in which the Grammy winner reveled her love for U2's 1987 cover of the song.

"I have a connection with U2 and the song because U2 wanted me to do all the background parts, not me and some people," she tells podcast host Brian Teta, The View's executive producer and showrunner. "I did all the background parts. We went in and we did the song."

"It has a special meaning to me because it's totally different from what everybody else did," adds Love, 82. "It was a U2's 'Baby (Christmas Please Come Home).' That's what made it so great."

Related: Darlene Love Wants to Rerecord 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' as a Duet with Mariah Carey

Related: Darlene Love's Last Holiday Shows of Year Sell Out After Mariah Carey Calls Her 'Queen of Christmas'

U2 released the cover of the song in December 1987, in conjunction with the charity compilation album A Very Special Christmas. The band also filmed a music video for the song in November 1987 at the Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hours before the band's concert there that night.

Of course, Love's original is the gold standard. Written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector, the song first appeared on the 1963 holiday compilation album, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector and despite not charting on its initial release, has found commercial success over the years. charting at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.

A yearly television live performance of the song also became holiday tradition for Love.

Beginning in 1986 and going for the next 29 years, she sang the song annually on the episode before Christmas of Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Show with David Letterman (save for 2007, when the Writer's Strike forced the program to air a repeat). When that show wrapped in 2015, Love started performing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home") on The View, where she's remained ever since.

That's what brought Love to Behind the Table. She did the podcast on Thursday, after pre-taping her performance, which will air on Friday's episode.

"I've just loved coming to The View every year," Love tells PEOPLE backstage at The View Thursday. "I was so loyal to David Letterman because he really reignited my career by bringing my back every year, so I deliberately wouldn't perform it anywhere else so I could make it special. And the last time, he said to me was, ‘I hope someone picks this up’ — because it was so much fun to do there. So to keep that tradition going as long as we can was important and somebody, a little bird, heard him and we brought it over to The View."

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Every year, various artists have joined Love on The View to duet on the song, including Rob Thomas, Jason Derulo, Bryan Adams, Patti LaBelle and Golden Globe nominee Fantasia. This year, it'll be Steven Van Zandt.

But the ones that often get the most attention are the View's own co-hosts, who sing backup.

"It's so great to have them up there," says Love, who was joined this year by Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sonny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin. "People always ask me, 'Are they really singing?' and I say, 'Of course!' Because who can hear this song and not sing along!?"

The View airs weekdays (11 a.m. ET) on ABC.

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