Christmas Songs

[Gangster Octopus]

I'm tempted to ask "what's Eastenders", but even I've heard of it...

[Felicity, I guess so]

I used to do a Xmas class teaching English in businesses in Madrid where I played a selection of songs while introducing them to mince pies. Invariably they chose Lennon as the winner so I would make them justify it while arguing that Wizzard was better (also allowing me to illustrate West Midlands accents)

[Felicity, I guess so]

Lennon's simple lyrics probably helped. I remember trying to explain the line does a ton up on his sleigh from Slade with little success

[Jah Womble]

Aye even by early 70s standards it's pap- but with a certain charm that reminds me of school discos

It does have a certain disposable charm about it - like it may have been knocked out in half an hour. Which it probably was.

(I thought I’d edited my previous post to make sense. Now it makes none whatsoever.)

[Duncan Gardner]

Teachers at my primary school (and probably everywhere else in the country) were not best pleased with their colleagues in the Black Country area.

Something to do with a spelling bee. Because I love you, mother: we are invariably excited currently

[Sporting]

Lennon's simple lyrics probably helped. I remember trying to explain the line does a ton up on his sleigh from Slade with little success

Though Lennon's lyrics talk about another year over and a new one just begun while still looking forward to Christmas.

[Sean of the Shed]

In Pizza Express in Harrow earlier, a James Brown Merry Christmas song was being played. Loved it, but I have no memory of having heard it before.

Ask Prince Andrew, he remembers everything that happens in Pizza Express.

[Sean of the Shed]

As I do on any Christmas song thread, I will link to my own favourite Christmas song:


Badly Drawn Boy - Donna And Blitzen

[pebblethefish]

It's time to remind everyone once again that Saint Etienne's I Was Born On Christmas Day is a cracking song.

I post this every year, but no one ever agrees...

[Jah Womble]

It's a nice tune. (And she was, wasn't she?)

(Edit: No she wasn't. Why on Earth did I think that?)

[Hot Orange]

Bob Stanley was.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Bob Stanley was.

So were Dido, Annie Lennox, and Shane MacGowan so there are the makings of an unlikely Christmas super group coming together for "We Were Born on Christmas Day".

(I've set the work Christmas quiz this week, and been struggling for questions beyond the obvious ones, I'm not usually so up on who was born on what day).

[E10 Rifle]

1 Last Christmas - Wham
2 Stay Another Day - East 17
3 A Winter's Tale - David Essex
4 I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake
5 Fairytale of New York - Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

I think TonTon is the only other person I know who agrees with me about A Winter's Tale, but more fool everyone else

[Sporting]

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

As I do on any Christmas song thread, I will link to my own favourite Christmas song:


Badly Drawn Boy - Donna And Blitzen

Another vote for this - it used to be my festive ringtone in the far off days when people used mobile phones to actually phone other.

[Jah Womble]

Bob Stanley was.

Cheers, that'll be what I was thinking. (Or not thinking.)

So were Dido, Annie Lennox, and Shane MacGowan so there are the makings of an unlikely Christmas super group coming together for "We Were Born on Christmas Day".

And, would that he were still alive, Noel Redding.

(I think I'm right in saying that we can add our own Bordeaux Education to this list? Maybe...)

[elguapo4]

Kenny Everett and Jairzinho were not only born on Christmas day, but in the same year, 1944.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

And, would that he were still alive, Noel Redding.

But not Brown Sauce vocalist Noel Edmonds (22 December). Noele Gordon was born on Christmas Day, and she could play a mean blues guitar after that time the Devil visited the motel, but unfortunately she is no longer with us.

[Stumpy Pepys]

It's time to remind everyone once again that Saint Etienne's I Was Born On Christmas Day is a cracking song.

I post this every year, but no one ever agrees...

I do. I have it on CD.

[Various Artist]

I agree too, pebbs – was going to mention it but you got in first!

And I like David Essex's A Winter's Tale too, E10.

[Jah Womble]

1 Last Christmas - Wham
2 Stay Another Day - East 17
3 A Winter's Tale - David Essex
4 I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake
5 Fairytale of New York - Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

I'll give a small nod to Stay Another Day - not exactly a Christmas song, but cleverly re-worked to pick up all those yuletide dollars.

Released twenty-six years ago, it still feels to me like the last festive pop 'standard' as well. (I'm open to having that disproved, however.)

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I'll give a small nod to Stay Another Day - not exactly a Christmas song, but cleverly re-worked to pick up all those yuletide dollars.

Released twenty-six years ago, it still feels to me like the last festive pop 'standard' as well. (I'm open to having that disproved, however.)

In terms of the songs which have re-entered the singles chart in recent weeks due to their presence on Spotify playlists etc, these can be considered modern additions to the canon:

Ariana Grande - Santa Tell Me (currently No. 11, dates from 2014)
Kelly Clarkson - Underneath the Tree (16, 2013)
Leona Lewis - One More Sleep (25, 2013)
Coldplay - Christmas Lights (49, 2011)
The Darkness - Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End) (77, 2003)

Excludes re-workings of old songs - yer Bubles, Biebers, Cullums, Sam Smiths etc, and songs from very recent years by e.g. Katy Perry and Sia, which haven't had long enough to prove their staying power yet.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Oh and honourable mention to Jose Feliciano's 1970 Feliz Navidad, which seems to have risen out of relative obscurity in recent years, without there there being a single compelling reason for it (it was Buble-d in 2011 but still took took a few years to stand on its own).

[Jah Womble]

Ariana Grande - Santa Tell Me (currently No. 11, dates from 2014)
Kelly Clarkson - Underneath the Tree (16, 2013)
Leona Lewis - One More Sleep (25, 2013)
Coldplay - Christmas Lights (49, 2011)
The Darkness - Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End) (77, 2003)

Fair enough - although I'm not sure they're really spoken of as perennials, are they? (Nor indeed with the same reverence as yer Slade, Wizzard, Elton, Mud, Greg Lake, Wings, Jonah Lewie, Wham, Band Aid, Pogues & Kirsty, et al.)

But that might be that they've not yet had the same longevity - and by the same token, it may just be the old man in me speaking.

(I always thought that that Darkness effort was utter gonads. But then I largely thought that of them anyway.)

[pebblethefish]

I'll give a small nod to Stay Another Day - not exactly a Christmas song, but cleverly re-worked to pick up all those yuletide dollars.

Released twenty-six years ago, it still feels to me like the last festive pop 'standard' as well. (I'm open to having that disproved, however.)

Still one of my favourite Christmas songs. Not because I like the music, although it's by no means the worst out there, because it won me 80 quid by getting to number one. My then girlfriend had bought the album in November, and it had a sticker on saying "Contains the singles Steam, Around the World, and Stay Another Day". As the first two had already been released, and SAD was clearly a Christmas song, I lumped a tenner on at 8-1, only getting the long odds because the band hadn't confirmed they were releasing a christmas single that year.