Iiiiit's Chriiiist-maaaaas!

Christmas is, of course, a time for music. It’s the season not only to be jolly but also to bathe in the warm, soapy waters of traditional songs. Yet what counts as tradition has changed markedly in my lifetime. 

As a child, Christmas music meant carols. That’s it. Pop songs come and go but the tunes and words of festive hymns stay with us for life. I think my favourite from primary school was ‘Away in a Manger’, with ‘Silent Night’ the best for atmosphere and ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’ or ‘While Shepherds Watched’ for a bit of up-tempo Crimbo. 'O Come All Ye Faithful' was more for grown-ups and I still think you can keep the dreary ‘In the Deep Midwinter’.

Growing older, I have disassociated myself from the religious element of carols and just listen to them as pleasant memories of Christmases past. A few years ago, as a member of the Quantock Musical Theatre Company, I performed a range of carols and other songs at various events through November and December. It gave me a new perspective, learning harmonies and singing tenor parts which may or may not be the melody ingrained in my head for five decades or so!

I did discover the history behind some of them. The ‘Coventry Carol’ sounded enchanting, though I say it myself. They could write tunes in the sixteenth century after all, I also enjoyed singing ‘Gaudete’. When Steeleye Span took it into the charts in 1973, I hadn’t appreciated it was even a Christmas song, nor that it was sung in Latin. Once you know that ‘Gaudete’ means ‘Rejoice’, a slight knowledge of French or Spanish is enough to understand the following lines in the chorus, “Christus est natus, ex-Maria virgine, Gaudete!” translates as “Christ is born of the Virgin Mary, rejoice!” I don’t have a recording of any of the QMTC a capella performances but the link above features Maddy Prior and her folky fellows doing their stuff.

Yet, away from the school hall, shopping centres or railway stations, carols are rarely heard these days. Once November begins, you start to take note of the muzak in shops. As the Hallowe-en masks are whisked back into store, and the fireworks are flogged at a huge discount, suddenly the shops are filled with the sight of tinsel and Santas, and the sound of Jonah Lewie’s “Dum-a-lum-a-lum-lum”s and Roy Wood’s school choir. When did the Christmas pop song become the ‘new tradition’?

There were no such hits in the Sixties that I can recall. I since learned about Harry Belafonte’s ‘Mary Boy Child’ from 1957, which was the first UK million-selling single. That same year, not even Elvis could elevate ‘Santa Bring my Baby Back to Me’ above seven in the charts. I had to make do with endless repeats on Junior Choice of someone lithping hith way through ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth’.

It's just as well that carols were omnipresent because there were no other festive Christmas number ones to celebrate. From ‘Moon River’ to ‘Green Green Grass of Home’, they were always major hits, but nary a jingle bell to be heard. ‘Lily the Pink’, ‘Two Little Boys’, ‘Grandad’ and 'Ernie' introduced the formula of family-friendly novelty records before John Lennon, Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band released the bitter-sweet ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over)’ in 1972, hopefully bringing the Vietnam War’s demise closer. Sadly people preferred to buy Chuck Berry's 'My Ding-a-Ling'. Fortunately, the next year we had some home-grown fare to enjoy, with Slade, Wizzard and Elton John, besides some long-forgotten festive comedy songs.

Throughout the Seventies the big Christmas songs piled up (the unfairly-neglected 'We Wish You a Wombling Merry Christmas', Greg Lake, Johnny Mathis et al), before a short hiatus. That came to an end in 1984. When Bob Geldof assembled a ‘who’s who’ of British pop at Sarm West Studios on Sunday 25^th November to record a song he’s composed with Midge Ure, with the sole purpose of raising millions for the victims of the Ethiopian famine, the Christmas charity phenomenon was born. The massive free publicity for Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, including piles of the hastily-pressed  singles in all shops and a five-minute broadcast of the promo video on BBC1, generated sales of more than three million.  

Of course, it helped that the song itself was a cracker: it was simultaneously a catchy singalong festive number and a tear-jerking reminder of why we should sometimes think of others worse off than ourselves. OK, so some of the lyrics were lazy but the message reached its target. Most of those performers are still household names, too, which is more than can be said for most participating in Band Aid 2 and Band Aid 20. More importantly, we realised that music could genuinely change the world. 

‘Do They Know it’s Christmas?’ even had the resilience to bring in more money for the Band Aid charity in three successive generations of pop royalty, although none could possibly match the punch packed by the original in ’84. Spare a thought for Wham, Gary Glitter and Queen. They all chose that winter to release their own Christmas classics. ‘Last Christmas’ sold a million without reaching number one but has proved to be one of the most popular, endearing seasonal songs and, following George Michael's Christmas death in 2016, could yet top the chart thanks to millions of streams in 2017.

The following year, the still-young ‘NOW’ brand released ‘The Christmas Album’, its first UK Christmas compilation. I know I bought it. With none of those dreadful Phil Spector productions, it was a great collection of British chart hits (but not Boney M’s ‘Mary’s Boy Child’) from Band Aid to Bing Crosby. Now the stores had something to play to get shoppers in the festive mood. They haven’t stopped since. 

Apart from the later versions of Band Aid, Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ and a couple of Cliff Richard crimes against music, there have been no true Christmas number ones in the intervening thirty years. I don’t count East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’ from 1994. Adding some chimes and sleighbells, and dressing the baseball-capped bad boy boy-band in white fur doesn’t really make it a Christmas song in my book. Nevertheless, if it’s one of Angie’s festive faves, clearly mine isn’t the only opinion. 

Topping the charts on 25^th December isn’t the only symbol of Christmas success. Jonah Lewie (‘Don’t Stop the Cavalry’), Greg Lake (I Believe in Father Christmas’), Mariah Carey (‘All I Want for Christmas is You’) and the extraordinary collaboration between Kirsty McColl and the Pogues (‘Fairytale of New York’) each fell agonisingly short of the top spot.  

Songs which tell a sentimental story at Christmas often do well. That’s probably why the bitter-sweet Irish-American ballad, Lewie’s wartime soldier’s thoughts and Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home for Christmas’, something we can all recognise, are arguably more popular now than they were when first released. 

In November 2013, Leona Lewis released a career-rescuing single, ‘One More Sleep’. I’m no fan of Lewis and her skin-crawling Carey-esque embellishments, but the song did seem to tick the right boxes when it comes to ingredients for a Christmas winner. Ironically it was blocked by the latest X Factor winner, Sam Bailey, an artist pretty much ignored ever since. I wonder if ‘One More Sleep’ becomes the ‘Fairytale of New York’ twenty years hence? Possibly, but probably not. 

In my humble opinion, ‘Pop Idol’ and ‘The X Factor’ have destroyed the whole excitement of The Christmas Number One’ in the past decade. Thanks so much, Simon Cowell! Apart from a few one-off charity records and an anti X Factor protest pipping the likes of Joe McElderry and James Arthur, ITV’s overblown ego and tear-fest has taken over, and the Christmas song has suffered in consequence. But there is a chink of light: the failures of the 2015 and 2016 winners has perhaps opened the door to a return. 

Probably everybody who wanted to buy the Christmas classics has already done so. However, the easy access to the tracks online and the changing chart rules in favour of streaming does seem to have given them a new lease of life. For the first time in years, Wham, Carey and The Pogues are all queuing up to depose Ed Sheeran and a potential flurry of charity efforts.

Just as long as there are no American Sixties re-runs, spacemen comin' a travellin', mistletoe or wine, I don't mind. For just a few weeks a year, even this Scrooge can cope with a cracking Christmas tune. I'll leave you with surely the best of them all. Take it away, Slade, and 'Merry Christmas Everybody'!