Christmas Songs

[Jah Womble]

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.

The song 'wasn't' a Christmas tune at first, though - it was a ballad written by Tony Mortimer about his deceased brother. It was only in the studio that the producers converted it into a festive anthem. (That surely wasn't the version on the album?)

I'm also trying to imagine who would have offered those odds and/or taken the bet!

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

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.)

Incidentally the Greg Lake classic doesn't do much commercially in the streaming era compared to the rest of those - single week appearances of 86 in 2015, 79 in 2017, 59 in 2019 - in practice it's not going to make it onto the "Christmas Party Bangers"-type playlists on Spotify.

Most of the rest of those are currently at the top end of the chart and of course last week's top of the table clash was whether All I Want for Christmas Is You or Last Christmas would make it to No. 1 for the first time. I'm glad the former won, only because I'd already written a question for the music round (which is the all-time biggest selling single in the UK never to make No.1) and didn't want to have to come up with a replacement.

Stay Another Day is at the low end of Christmas perennials - has peaked in the low 30s in the last couple of years and not turned up at all this year - which I guess will be due to it being missed off Spotify playlists in favour of more blatantly Christmas themed songs.

[San Bernardhinault]

Five Acceptable Christmas Songs:

Just Like Christmas - Low
Winter Song - Sara Bareilles
Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton
Christmas Wrapping - Waitresses
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Wizzard

Five Christmas Songs I Never Want To Hear Again:

Stop the Cavalry
Little Drummer Boy
Wonderful Christmastime
Merry Christmas War Is Over
Mistletoe and Wine

[longeared]

I always find it hard to square Stay Another Day being a Christmas song with the fact that it was still in the chart the following May.

Oh and another one who likes A Winters Tale, along with the video filmed on Dartmoor in what looks like October. Still haven't heard it on the radio yet, which adds weight to my growing belief that radio is steering clear of the more subdued Christmas music this year. (I heard Lonely This Christmas for the first time in the local shop last night)

[elguapo4]

A Winters Tale on BBC 4 now.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Just searched my itunes for every Xmas/santa/winter/snow/Navidad etc song and came up with 203, with some loose categorisation amongst them (gospel, country songs that mention Jesus etc).

Next stage will be to remove the stuff that I would never willingly listen to again (Slade, McCartney, Lennon, Band Aid etc) and we should have an occasional playlist to shuffle through at suitably festive moments.

[Felicity, I guess so]

So by this definition not only Walk out to Winter but also Winter in America and Winter of '79 are IN

[Ray de Galles]

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.

I was going to mention the Clarkson and Grande ones actually. I drove my daughter home from university last week and we spent the entire four hour journey listening to Magic FM's Non-Stop Xmas Songs and they stood out as excellent recent additions to the genre along with Leona Lewis's tune that I mentioned as the reason for disinterring the thread.

[Ray de Galles]

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).

I'm similarly bemused as to where this one's recent ubiquity has come from. I've always wondered if it was due to use in a film.

[danielmak]

I also dig that Waitresses song posted by San Bernardhinault

Alan Jackson, "Honky Tonk Christmas"

Joshua James is kind of an alt.country guy but this one has a little bit of a pop indie feel to it:

[willie1foot]

I have created a Christmas Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4fbmAP1ERby7iZDg3jR84j?si=y4hy_rDcR1aw2Nla_R7F9g

Nothing too new on there.... I hope you like it!

[Uncle Ethan]

Traditional Australian Christmas song (warning NSFW or indeed, possibly, for home). Includes words that rhyme with runt and ducking.

[G-Man]

A selection of Christmas blues tracks.

And a freshly-baked batch of Christmas songs from the 1940s.

[Sporting]

Five Acceptable Christmas Songs:

Just Like Christmas - Low
Winter Song - Sara Bareilles
Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton
Christmas Wrapping - Waitresses
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Wizzard

Five Christmas Songs I Never Want To Hear Again:

Stop the Cavalry
Little Drummer Boy
Wonderful Christmastime
Merry Christmas War Is Over
Mistletoe and Wine

I like Lennon's song, though maybe I'm alone on this.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I like Lennon's song, though maybe I'm alone on this.

We've covered it on here before but much of Lennon's song was lifted from a trad folk song about a racehorse which has a rich lineage through Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, the skiffle boom and into the folk-pop scene in the early 60s.

[Sporting]

We've covered it on here before but much of Lennon's song was lifted from a trad folk song about a racehorse which has a rich lineage through Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, the skiffle boom and into the folk-pop scene in the early 60s.

Agreed but I still like it.

[Bored Of Education]

Showaddywaddy are supposed to be an enjoyable live proposition even now, aren't they?

I went to a Showaddywaddy gig at Dingwalls in the 80s. They were great but, apart from the band, I was the only one in a drape jacket. I still have that drape jacket.

[Benjm]

Did anyone mistake you for a member of the band, Bordeaux Education?

I once saw a guy dressed as Paul Weller at a Paul Weller concert almost physically attack someone who mentioned that he looked a bit like Paul Weller. Total Wellend.

[Benjm]

Back on topic, and prompted by a Gangster Octopus mention on the Mundane thread, a copy of James Brown's Funky Christmas arrived in the post yesterday.

[beak]

i'm going to be like one of those tedious wankers who will get into pedantry in the whole die hard/christmas movies discussion by claiming i wanna be your dog as a christmas song.

[Levin]

Add me to the people who like Christmas Wrapping.

I'm also fond of Crudbump's "Fuck you if you don't like Christmas"

[longeared]

Something I've just learnt to my surprise; Christmas Wrapping has never reached the UK top 40. It only peaked at 45 on initial release in 1982, and hasn't gone higher in the download / streaming eras. Best it's managed since is 46 a couple of years ago. It's not even in the current top 100, presumably not being on popular playlists.

[Foot of Astaire's]

5 pages and no mention of my favourite xmas songs:

Thea Gilmore - That'll be Christmas (includes Jonah Louie name check!) And

Hurts - All I want for Christmas is new years day.

Another fan here too of Winters tale and Those Christmas lights.

[Jah Womble]

Something I've just learnt to my surprise; Christmas Wrapping has never reached the UK top 40. It only peaked at 45 on initial release in 1982, and hasn't gone higher in the download / streaming eras. Best it's managed since is 46 a couple of years ago. It's not even in the current top 100, presumably not being on popular playlists.

It’s one of those Christmas tunes that was always a bit too cool for the charts. It tends to show up on loads of festive compilations, however, hence you’ll hear it endlessly at supermarkets.

[Satchmo Distel]

'Feliz Navidad' has been very popular in the US ever since its release, where Spanish is obviously widely spoken, and I think it has crept on to UK streaming playlists from the fact that UK playlists feed off US ones. Its rise up the Xmas rankings is probably due to it being uplifting, having a nice hook, and the novelty of hearing a Xmas song in Spanish.

I heard the original Band Aid single yesterday and I have to say it's not a bad composition. The section from where the drums kick in to the start of the chorus is very well done and the chorus itself stands up very well.

Last Christmas I don't get at all. The flipside, Everything She Wants, is a much more sincere song, George letting out his misogyny.