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| Slade… the first time around. |
One pop cultural aspect of Christmas
that has, in my opinion, been overdone beyond even the most blackened
festive goose is the Christmas single.... or however one refers to
such things in these days of the download.
I can honestly remember a time when
the phenomenon did not exist… a time when no one was remotely interested in
which act would occupy the number one slot come Christmas. Can this be true? I assure you that it is. What we
knew then, and what today’s audience have lost sight of, is that
such things don’t matter. Did they ever? I’d venture to say
‘probably’, but it wasn’t for long... maybe for just a handful
of years, starting in 1973.
1973 was, to me, the year in which the
Christmas single phenomenon really kicked off. It was the year of Slade’s Merry
Xmas Everybody and Wizzard’s I Wish it Could be Christmas
Every Day (occupying the number one and number four slots
respectively in the all important chart of December
23rd). Elsewhere, however, it was business as usual, and barring Elton John’s Step into Christmas, which only managed a
peak position of number 25, the charts were a festive-free zone. But things wouldn't stay that way for much longer...
Measured against the efforts of previous years, three Christmas singles in the top 40
was tantamount to an avalanche of musical good cheer. In 1972, the only records in the
Christmas charts that acknowledged the time of year were John
Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over) and a rendition of The
Little Drummer Boy from the Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots
Dragoon Guard. In 1971, the sum total of Christmas-themed singles in
the charts on December 19th was zero. What we had instead
was a novelty record occupying the number one slot – in this case,
Benny Hill’s Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West).
Novelty records for Christmas were
becoming something of a tradition: the Scaffold’s Lily The Pink
cornered the number one spot over Christmas 1968, and the following
year, Rolf Harris made his bid with Two Little Boys (although
he peaked too early, being knocked off number one for the chart of Christmas
week). In 1972, Chuck Berry’s My Ding-a-Ling (a live
recording made in Coventry, of all places) was released to cash in on
the season of goodwill to all recording artists, but got pipped to
the number one spot by Little Jimmy Osmond’s regrettable Long
Haired Lover from Liverpool. I recall the sense of disappointment
I experienced at seeing Chuck B ousted by such risible trash (aged
just eleven, I had yet to decode the filthy intent couched within Mr.
Berry’s tale of a ‘cute little toy’); so maybe 1972 was the
year in which, for me at any rate, the Christmas number one first
seemed to hold some special significance.
If you want to find a bona fide
Christmas-themed record in the UK top twenty during the festive
season before the 1970s, you have to go all the way back to 1962,
when Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree made
its first appearance; but such artefacts were as thin on the ground
as snow in the midlands. Artists simply did not make Christmas
records during the 1960s: they had better, more creative things to
do. The Beatles’ only outing in a festive direction took the form
of a repetitive, chugalong mantra Christmas Time is Here Again,
but the fabs had sufficient taste and discretion to restrict it to
one of their annual fan club Christmas records. (Dora Bryan’s
shameless cash-in All I Want for Christmas is a Beatle had
stalled at No. 24 in 1963).
1960’s chart is the only one out of
the whole decade in which we find two festive-themed singles
jockeying for position: Nina and Frederick’s Little Donkey
taking on Adam Faith’s Lonely Pup in a Christmas Shop. Who
would win in such a contest? As Harry Hill might say, there’s only
one way to find out... in fact, it was the diminutive ass who won by
a nose, peaking at number 3 while Adam Faith’s pup was left
whimpering at the door of number four...
Christmas records were certainly being made
in the 1950s and 60s, but as a rule, they failed to get anywhere near
the top 20. Max Bygraves’ tawdry Jingle Bell Rock was let
loose on a unsuspecting world in 1959, and did reasonable business,
managing a respectable placing of number eleven; but like other
Christmas singles of the period, it failed to perform what would
later become the magic trick of all such festive items: resurrection
via repeated radio play and, in some cases, re-release. That
particular genie was still to be let out of its bottle... and when it
was, even the Bygraves effort would find its way onto many a
Christmas-themed compilation, in company with even less successful
efforts from Christmases past, all of them now deemed entirely
suitable for public consumption over the festive period.
Like
turkey and mince pies, Christmas records are fine in moderation, but
too many of them and you’ll be reaching for the Rennies. Via the
medium of Radio 2, this past Saturday night, I was subjected to an
endless playlist of Christmas music, none of which I had ever heard
before, nor do I wish to hear again. It left me with the realisation that the
phenomenon has gone well beyond saturation point. There are now enough
Christmas-themed songs available to overload anyone’s iTunes folder
and most of them, frankly, we can do without. As if it weren’t
enough to have every cash-in conscious artist rolling out their own
efforts (thank you Jamie Cullum, yours can go in the dumpster with all
the rest), the music licensing industry has spent the past decade
scraping the dregs from past barrels of festive tosh, to the point at
which any song that so much as name checks anything dimly related to Christmas, snow, or whatever, is
deemed worthy of inclusion on the latest compilation: viz. Alma Cogan’s Never Do a Tango
With an Eskimo, which, in fairness to the late chanteuse, does
not mention the C-word anywhere in its nonsensical lyric.
In fact, I’d like to see all
Christmas songs deleted from history, with only a select playlist of
the great and the good left for posterity. Okay, so maybe they’re
not all intrinsically great and good, but a lot of what we now consider the
classics of Christmas music have earned their place in our
affections, sometimes after years of persistent toil.
This brings me to another aspect of the
whole phenomenon: when, exactly, does a Christmas record begin to
feel as if it belongs to the festive season? The 1970s were the golden
age of the Christmas single, and I can remember hearing all of them on their original release, but with a few notable exceptions, none of them felt
remotely Christmassy the first time around. For me, the only record
that really succeeded in summoning up any kind of spirit of Christmas
on its first release was Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father
Christmas, one of the more sincere examples of a genre not noted
for its artistic or musical integrity. Even in 1975, that song said
something to me that was worth saying; and without laying on the
festive trappings too heavily, it pulled off the trick of sounding
like Christmas, with its sparkling acoustic 12-string guitar intro,
the notes falling like snow crystals in the wintry air... (excuse me,
I got a bit carried away there). Slade, on the other hand, was just a
good old knees-up in the band’s already familiar oeuvre, and Roy
Wood's effort had so many sleighbells and wassailing children, you couldn’t
help feeling Christmassy when you heard it... but as for the rest...
Having displayed unusual restraint in
the Christmas department, Paul McCartney finally threw his hat into
the ring with 1979’s Wonderful Christmas Time. Nowadays,
that echoing synth intro is enough to guarantee a subliminal,
Pavolvian image of turkey, mince pie, holly, snow, you name it...
but back then, it just sounded like any other synth-based pop record. In short, it may have been out
at Christmas, and about Christmas, but it neither sounded nor felt in
any way a part of the festive season. I remember feeling exactly the
same thing about Jona Lewie’s now-obligatory anthem Stop the
Cavalry on its first outing in 1980. Apart from the brass band, and a
single glancing reference to being at home ‘for Christmaaaaa’
(did he or did he not enunciate that final sibilant?), there didn’t
seem much in the way of good cheer about it. He even included a nod
to then then-popular idea of an impending nuclear war. I didn’t
think much of it at all. Then, the following year, the BBC snipped
out the brass band refrain and used it as a background to trail their
festive programme line-up. That did it for me: shorn of the
miserabalist lyrics, I could hear the song in the way it was
intended. It has now become a presence akin to Jacob Marley’s
ghost, impossible not to hear as you push your overloaded trolley
down some supermarket aisle. It happened to me this morning. It has
become part of the fabric of Christmas. But not all efforts are as
successful, nor are they ever likely to be.
Slade’s success over Christmas 1973
served as a clarion call to others to do likewise, and the following
year, the bandwagon was well under way, with Mud, Showaddywaddy and
the Wombles all on board. Though not strictly a Christmas record, we
can also lump in Ralph McTell’s Streets of London, aiming
for the sympathy vote with its end-of-year release. 1975 saw Greg
Lake deservedly making a significant impression on the charts;
indeed, had it not been for the phenomenon that was (and still is)
Bohemian Rhapsody, the late Mr. Lake might conceivably have
enjoyed a Christmas number one that year. Posterity owes it to him,
perhaps more so than anyone else, though it’s maybe too much to
hope for... ’75 also saw a slew of less well-intentioned efforts to
crack the seasonal chart, including records from the Goodies, the
BBC-banned Judge Dread and even Freddie Starr (stretching the limits
of public goodwill with a version of White Christmas).
Clearly, enough was already becoming as good as a feast.
If I had to name a record as the last
ever festive release that didn’t move me to heave a yule log
at the radio, then I’d nominate The Pogues’ Fairytale of
New York. Again, it didn’t really sound Christmassy at the
time, and it took a few years before it began to feel like a fully
paid-up-member of the classic Christmas singles club; but at least it was an attempt to do something different, and its narrative of a
squabbling, drunken couple’s Christmas in New York was refreshingly
unsentimental. I even saw them peform it on the year of release, at
Birmingham’s NEC, with Kirsty MacColl making an unexpected, though
welcome appearance on stage.
Since then, I’d venture to say that
there hasn’t been a single Christmas record deserving of our
goodwill, or of earning a place at the top table. Me, I’d take Adam
Faith’s shameless 1960 effort any day in preference to Coldplay’s dismal
dirge, or the desperate Queen-by-numbers-but-without-the-genius that
was the Darkness’ overplayed attempt of however many years ago. I’d
have them all put in a big Santa sack, weighted down with some choice
lumps of New Year’s Eve coal, and dumped in the cold North Sea,
never to be heard from ever again.
I remain, yours truly, E. Scrooge, esq.
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