Ex-Beatles' Xmas hits time confusion

[imp]

Listening to commercial radio over Christmas has caused me to stop and think about some important issues, and the most important of these is: why the fuck have ex-Beatles no concept of time when writing their Christmas lyrics?

First of all, there's John Lennon with Happy Xmas/War Is Over. It's not just that it's a repetitive shite-bag of wishful hippie bollocks. It's these lines: "And so this is Christmas/And what have you done?/Another year over/A new one just begun." Really, John? Last time I looked, Christmas was on December 25th., a full fucking week before the New Year. So not only is the year not "over", a new year definitely has not yet "just begun" - in fact the year is 51 weeks old, just about as old as a year can get. For fuck's sake, if you're going to sit warbling with your avant-garde nutjob wife preaching to the whole fucking world about how they're supposed to lead their lives, at least take a proper fucking look at the calendar.

And don't get me started on McCartney. Not only is 'Wonderful Christmastime' the most annoying song in his vast archive of head-hassling quirk-pop (and remember that archive includes Maxwell's Silver fucking Hammer), it contains the following line: "The choir of children sing their song/They practiced all year long." Did they really? So in January the choirmaster got them together and said, "There's 12 months until next Christmas, but we're going to start practicing now, and keep on going right through spring, summer and fucking autumn, because we need to get these songs absolutely right." Because no one in the choir's going to know 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing', are they? And every other fucking carol they've been singing every year since birth, and which no one ever needs to fucking practice until late November at the earliest, if at all, because they already know the fucking songs off by heart, you Fab Four fuckwit.

Honestly, what were they thinking?

[Jah Womble]

From what I recall, the 'choir of children' sang little other than 'ding dong' anyway. If that took a whole year of practice, well, words fail me. (As they seem to have done, the kids.)

Ding Dong was, of course, coincidentally the title of that other ex-Beatle George Harrison's festive effort back in 1974. It became the first former Fab Four-solo not to trouble the UK Top 30 (as was).

As for me, I've always quite liked it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

"Christmas" is not the same as "Christmas Day"

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The New Year really begins on December 21st. So it's not inconsistent at all to get to that date, sigh 'another year over' and then 'and so this is Christmas'.

[Satchmo Distel]

A bigger issue perhaps is that Lennon nicked the melody from this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hXdQB-mR4tg

[G-Man]

"Christmas" is not the same as "Christmas Day"

Yes, in defence of John Lennon, in Christian thought, the Christmas season begins on December 25 and ends on the feast of the Epiphany (for Anglicans and other Protestants) or the feast of the Baptism of the Lord
(for Catholics); i.e. January 6 or 13 respectively. He might have been bigger than Jesus, but Lennon seemed to obey the quirks of the liturgical calendar. Though,. I suspect, quite by accident. So imp's point night still stand.

[Satchmo Distel]

It's also poetic license to maintain the rhyme scheme, as in the California Dreaming case.

[Sporting]

How many newspapers'/sports federations'/etc. "Bests of the Year" are `published in January of the following year?

[ad hoc]

Maybe Lennon was referring to Russian orthodox Christmas on January 7th.

[tee rex]

Ding Dong was, of course, coincidentally the title of that other ex-Beatle George Harrison's festive effort back in 1974. It became the first former Fab Four-solo not to trouble the UK Top 30 (as was).

As for me, I've always quite liked it.

Not the smartest marketing, there. Christmas records can invade your ears from October, but nobody wants to "ring out the old, ring in the new" before Dec 27, or after Jan 2, which doesn't leave much time for storming the charts.

[ad hoc]

I'm intrigued at this time of the year as to how few bands/artists have tried to cash in on what must be a market for "Happy New Year" records. The amount of money that Slade, or Shane Macgowan, or whoever must have made over the years by dint of having their songs on repeat for a month every single year must surely have convinced people that making a record for New Year would be an earner. Abba did it (and get endless airtime through it, at least over here), and arguably U2 did too, but almost no others that i can think of. And of course there are large swathes of the world where Christmas is not celebrated but New Year is.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Coldplay have had a go - and actually it's one of their less shit ones. I think since BandAid made them all realise "this really all ought to be for charity, shouldn't it"? they're all a bit embarassed to go down the Paul McCartney route of 'write the record, sing the record, play every single fucking instrument on the record, produce the record, snort up every single fucking penny in royalties'.

[Jah Womble]

New Year's Day by U2 wasn't a requiem for Hogmanay so much as it was a song in support of the Polish Solidarnosc movement. (I don't think it charted until late January 1983 anyway.)

Generally speaking, I'd have agreed with ad hoc about a song for the New Year about thirty years ago - but nowadays, nobody really gives a sh*t what's happening in the charts at any time of year, tbh. I mean, there are three festive tunes in this week's Top Ten - and all of them are over a quarter of a century old.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

New Year's Day by U2 wasn't a requiem for Hogmanay so much as it was a song in support of the Polish Solidarnosc movement. (I don't think it charted until late January 1983 .

I think ad hoc was referring to their recording of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", which does still get far more airplay than it deserves.

[ad hoc]

No, I was referring to New Year's Day. I didn't know what it was about, though I did realise it wasn't supposed to be a "Let's all get drunk and ring in the new" type song. I'm not talking about caring about what's in the charts either, merely about what rakes in the airtime and the sales. Abba must have made a mint on their HNY offering, and I'm intrigued that no-one else has tried to do the same. The fact that

I mean, there are three festive tunes in this week's Top Ten - and all of them are over a quarter of a century old.

actually makes my point. It's a fucking gold mine.

Must confess I'm not familiar with Coldplay's offering, and frankly it can stay that way.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I wonder if that bloody Primary School that sang "There's no-one quite like Grandma" still gets the royalties every year off that?

[Sporting]

I wonder if that bloody Primary School that sang "There's no-one quite like Grandma" still gets the royalties every year off that?

I bet they just got paid a fixed fee at the time.

[longeared]

How much would St Winifreds actually get in royalties these days though? Only time they get airplay would be either via Pick of the Pops or stations doing "the top three this week in 1980" or if you get some banter-merchant like Keaveny playing them out of irony. Don't imagine they get streamed much and I can't see them in the top 500 songs in the Google Play Store.

Another new year song - The Perfect Year by Dina Carroll, a pedestrian ballad from a quarter of a century ago (!) that often gets a bit of a run out on the radio once they've parked Slade et al.

[Jah Womble]

St Winifred's School might've been given a small donation, but I doubt whether anyone made any kind of wedge from There's No One Quite Like Grandma, bar the writers. (A couple of the girls appeared on the NMTB identity parade in 1998. I should've asked them - although perhaps better that I didn't.)

The fact that actually makes my point. It's a fucking gold mine.

Well, my point was more that it's not going to happen now. I mean, who's been creating memorable Christmas pop songs over the past decade or so?

Sure, if you had a time machine and went back to the seventies to create a 'classic' à la Slade/Wizzard then, yes, it'd be a 'goldmine'.

[Sits]

I wonder if that bloody Primary School that sang "There's no-one quite like Grandma" still gets the royalties every year off that?

My primary school made a record in about 1973, I've not seen a penny.

It was shite, mind.

[ad hoc]

Well, my point was more that it's not going to happen now. I mean, who's been creating memorable Christmas pop songs over the past decade or so?

Fair enough, that's true (though it seems like every band is churning out Christmas songs these days, mostly covers, and I guess that some of them hope that in a few years they will become classics). My question was really about why back then nobody wrote/performed NewYear songs.

[Sits]

Sure, if you had a time machine and went back to the seventies to create a 'classic' à la Slade/Wizzard then, yes, it'd be a 'goldmine'.

And since. No idea of the numbers but I'd imagine Mariah's festive effort probably garners more downloads nowadays.

[Bored Of Education]

It's also poetic license to maintain the rhyme scheme, as in the California Dreaming case.

When does Christmas begin in 'California Dreaming'?

[Sean of the Shed]

Mtariah Carey's is probably the most recent of the really enduring Christmas tunes. I think you would have to come up with a truly remarkable and original tune now to break in to what is already a saturated market. There are Christmas songs that come out every year but few have the staying power of the staples that exist already. It's also worth remembering that the Christmas hit was all but killed off (in the UK at least) when Cowell hijacked the festive chart to promote his fucking karaoke contest.

[Nurse Duckett]

How many newspapers'/sports federations'/etc. "Bests of the Year" are `published in January of the following year?

About the same number of televised football matches where they wait until the game is finished before asking the co-commentator to nominate the man of the match?

Lucky that nothing ever happens after the 88th minute - ask any Leeds or Norwich fans (other examples are available)...