Having had the "pleasure" of hearing Whigfield's abysmal cover of Last Christmas on several occasions today (oh, the joys of working in retail), it sounded like it was going to turn into Set Adrift On Memory Bliss at any moment, which would have been preferable in the same way that winning the lottery is better than being shot in the face.
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Christmas songs that sound like non-Christmas songs
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It's got that Christmas tambourine/bells sound going on, so that's Christmassy.
Fairytale Of New York and Stop The Cavalry are not really Christmas songs. The latter mentions Christmas tangentially, so its inclusion on lists of "greatest ever X-Mas songs" irritates me.
And if you remove the seasonal lyrics from them, standards like White Christmas or The Christmas Song don't really have a Christmassy feel either, other than our association of them with Christmas. Try it with White Christmas on karaoke:
I'm going, to the greengrocer
just like I do 'most every day,
where the spuds are rotten
and peas forgotten
and swedes all mashed up on the floor
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Originally posted by G-Man View PostFairytale Of New York and Stop The Cavalry are not really Christmas songs. The latter mentions Christmas tangentially, so its inclusion on lists of "greatest ever X-Mas songs" irritates me.
Both songs tell stories not especially associated with the season, but nonetheless applied to it. Another is 2000 Miles by The Pretenders. They all count - it doesn't all have to be about Santa Claus, snowmen, holly and ivy, etc.
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Xmas songs often have a big chorus and hook, which the sleigh bells then enhance. The ballads began as a specifically Forties thing connected to the war: nostalgia for peacetime Xmas. Jonah Lewie backdated his to the First World War. Macca somewhat jumped on that formula with Pipes of Peace, which is in the latest Chart Music podcast; entered the chart at Xmas but No. 1 in January.
But you can turn a singalong or ballad into a Xmas song just through the lyric. Slade's anthemic hit builds on the formula of their four previous Number Ones. Roy Wood already had a template in See My Baby Jive and the Phil Spector Xmas album, and he was the British Spector in production terms. I still think Elton John did the least musical tinkering with his usual formula; just sprinkle some Xmasy overdubs.
Sometimes a romantic ballad gets a Xmas association just from when it was released: e.g. The Power of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Flying Pickets cover of Yazoo.
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Originally posted by ad hoc View PostIf you remove the words about Christmas from Christmas songs they are no longer Christmas songs? You have to have sleigh bells?
What about carols? Take all the words out of "Away in a Manger" and it's just a bit of organ music
And I'd say "Away in a Manger" is more children's rhyme music than organ music.
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