Chris's Christmas Countdown
chrisno1
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CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 1st : Number 25 : Little Town – Cliff Richard
Any sort of Christmas countdown really wouldn’t look the same if it didn’t have a Cliff Richard song in it. He’s quite prolific when it comes to Christmas. At the last count over a dozen festive singles and three official albums (often reissued and updated) and several million bottles of his Quinta do Moinho Estate vintage wine. He’s quite prolific period, having charted a single or album every year since 1958 and his first hit Move It. Yes, that genuine rock and roller. Cliff, where did it all go wrong, mate? Yes, I know he found the Lord and all that, and I don’t want to be cynical about what he believes, but sometime after classics like the fast and furious Dynamite or the achingly melancholy A Voice in the Wilderness, Cliff got all sanitized. I mean, When in Rome, an album sung in Italian, really, Cliff? It was probably his manager’s fault; the same thing happened to Elvis. Well, back to Christmas records. Cliff’s pretty good at picking a winning pop song, it’s such a pity most of his Christmas fare is so dreary. Do you remember that Mistletoe thing? I had to listen to it every day in December 1988 as my then manager in W.H. Smith was a huge fan. I’m still suffering. When I hear the opening lines I get chills and not the exciting kind. And let’s not talk about The Millennium Prayer... Well, in fact we should, because that song (number one in Christmas 1999) repeats a trick Cliff first pulled off in 1982 when he released the much underrated Little Town, a pop re-working of the Christmas carol O Little Town of Bethlehem. Cliff was on a good run of form in the late seventies and early eighties (Now You See Now You Don’t, I’m Nearly Famous, Devil Woman, Never Say Die). This, his first ever proper Christmas Single, crept in under most people’s radar, probably because it’s understated and is based on a solid tune (lyrics by Phillips Brookes, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on the folk tune Forest Green). It’s a heartwarming take on a traditional song. Cliff and his production team don’t twiddle a lot of fancy knobs here: it’s very straight forward, which is one of its benefits; kudos too for only peaking at number 11, just beneath the aforementioned radar. I’m afraid I couldn’t find a decent video clip – this dodgy looking video is as good as you're gonna get. You Tube is full of the song set to photo montages of Santa and snow which isn’t really the thrust of the song. Nonetheless, Little Town feels Christmassy, in both the familial seasonal sense and the religious sense. Go on. Have a listen. And if you can afford it, buy some of Cliff’s wine too…
Comments
Yes, that one's a banger.
Devil Woman was 1976. Not quite late 70s, so it didn't make his mega selling Cliff Collection double LP from the late 80s, a glaring omission (it instead was on another Double LP of Cliff's encompassing his earlier stuff).
Sadly there's never been a really definitive Cliff Greatest Hits, with everything from Move It to, say, Some People.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 2nd : Number 24 : Rocking Around the Christmas Tree – Mel & Kim
Everyone loves a party at Christmas - including me, believe it or not. We had a few good ones at the family homestead with singsongs around the piano and music on the reel-to-reel. My Nana and her brother did a fantastic rendition of The Laughing Policeman one year and on another I danced to A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts. But when a family has young kids they do that sort of thing and Christmas parties are best when there are plenty of kids, lots of singing and dancing. I don’t think I ever saw a case of anyone actually dancing around a Christmas tree, but I bet a few people tried it. There was a set of Christmas stamps from the Royal Mail back in the seventies or eighties which illustrated a Victorian family doing just that. They had open candles on their Christmas tree so it was a very obvious fire hazard, all those long tailed coats and long hair fanning the flames. So, arson aside, parties are always great fun at Christmas: you say stupid things, partake in games you’d normally steer clear of, drink too much, eat too much and stagger out the door pissed. Of course now we have to walk or get a taxi at vast expense. In the old days someone would drive. Very, very, slowly. But we don’t want to go there. Instead let’s think about all that pumpkin pie you used to eat. What? You never ate pumpkin pie? I’m not surprised. Does anyone really make pumpkin pie in Britain? Brenda Lee, bless, did a lovely job of encouraging us to by Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree way back in 1958. Little Brenda Lee was only fourteen years old when she hit the big time in the USA and this was one of her first hits. She continued to have a big career throughout the 1960s. Curiously, for such a Christmas standard, very few versions of the song were recorded prior to the 1980s so Brenda’s version is instantly recognizable. Most recent versions don’t deserve a mention. However I’ve plumped for the 1987 charity version from Mel and Kim. Not the Mel and Kim of Respectable fame, but comedian Mel Smith and sometime New Wave wild cat Kim Wilde. It’s a cheesy, half-arsed record which, a troublesome and dated reference to Rolf Harris aside, doesn’t take itself seriously from the outset. I wonder if that Rolf line is the reason we don't hear this track so often. Regardlesss, the listener knows they are being clowned, and I fall for it every time, basically every time Mel Smith says: “Pumpkin pie anyone?” I always wonder: who made the pie and who’s going to eat it? Enjoy the record or some pie…
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 3rd : Number 23 : Thank You Very Much from Scrooge – Anton Rodgers and Chorus
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of a series of short stories he wrote and published under the anthology title The Christmas Books. It is one of his most accessible tales. Because of its short span and its clear moral message, it has remained tremendously popular and lends itself very well to adaptation. There have been countless cinematic versions starring, among others, Alistair Sim, George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart, Seymour Hicks and Reginald Owen. Reginald Who? He was in Hollywood’s original talkie version of 1938. Seymour Who? The British equivalent, from 1935. We’ve also had modernized versions (Scrooged, with Bill Murray) and cartoons (Mickey’s Christmas Carol, with Scrooge McDuck in the role he was born to play). We’ve even had Jim Carrey hamming it up in Walt Disney’s A Christmas Carol. Not entirely sure what the Charles Dickens’ estate thought of that one. Not entirely sure what they thought of the Carry On television spoof either (Sid James as a dirty old Scrooge). The Blackadder special was very good, but twisted the story to suit its lead character. My personal favourite has always been A Muppet Christmas Carol which gets an airing every Yuletide, usually while I’m stuffing turkeys, making cranberry sauce or simply drinking some sauce before dinner. Michael Caine is brilliant as Scrooge and Miss Piggy is on Oscar winning form as Emily Cratchitt. Aided by Gonzo’s bizarre Dickens, we learn all about Scrooge and his greedy soul. His redemption really is a blessed miracle. Not so in the Leslie Bricusse musical Scrooge, released in 1970 and always compared unfavourably to Oliver! It can only be described as a ‘dark musical’. Albert Finney doesn’t quite convince as the titular character, but it’s well staged and tells the story with some gusto. Fifties pop star Tommy Steele regularly took a stage production on tour, so it’s clearly got legs and festive appeal, despite the Oliver-lite comparisons. The songs are fine, but there’s only one real showstopper, so Anton Rodgers, Albert Finney and Chorus: Thank You Very Much…
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 4th : Number 22 : Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Dean Martin & Martina MacBride
It’s a curious American entertainment tradition that an artist has, at some point in their career, to release a festive themed album. There’s even a special chart for it. (The Americans, you see, dare not pollute the proper music charts with a bit of Crimbo Crooning.) The prime orchestrators of this tradition were and remain those twin totems of corporate entertainment EMI music and the Columbia Broadcasting Society. Have a look back at all those great American songsters and see how many of them were affiliated to these record labels. If they ever released a Christmas themed album / cd I almost guarantee it’ll be on those labels. [OK, so now you’re going to search just to prove me wrong. Well, go on then, I know it’s coming...] My point is there’s an in built expectation stateside not just from the record company, but the artist too, which persuades them they really must do the festive thing. Even Bob Dylan succumbed eventually. The record doesn’t even have to be very good – did I mention Bob Dylan? – most are middling at best. The aim is to deliver a statement to the audience, the artist's fans, which says ‘I am now respectable’. The first man to play this game was Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager. He decided a winter gospel album was needed to break through the teen barrier and tap into an older generation’s market. [And yes, I know Elvis was signed to RCA; whatever...] History repeated itself when the King made his ‘68 comeback and the Colonel got Elvis to record a second far inferior festive collection in 1970. Anyways, there have been some outstanding Christmas albums among the dross [or should that be the Luther Vandross? This is Christmas – oh gosh I hope not…]. Ella Fitzgerald, for instance, or more recently Michael Bublé, if you like, or Kelly Clarkson, if you want. But none is more excellent and timeless than Dean Martin’s A Winter Romance. Dean is perfect for Christmas. Even when sober, he sounds half pissed, and you just believe he’s got his dickie on, a martini in one hand and a fag in the other and he’s not only singing about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, he’s positively looking like him. Deano’s delivery is so smooth and relaxed it’s like being sung to by your favourite sweater. Without wishing to sound maudlin, Dean Martin’s Christmas kudos was solidified by his dying on Christmas Day 1995 – so I am marking his thirty year passing by picking out one of his songs from that seminal LP. It’d be too obvious to pick Rudy or Let It Snow, but among the other great tracks on the album is a duet with a nameless backing singer, Baby Its Cold Outside. The song dates from the 1949 Esther Williams musical Neptune’s Daughter and was recorded by several artists before Deano got his chops on it. More recently Tom Jones did a raunchy version with Cerys Matthews, which sits somewhere near the bottom of inappropriate Christmas music fare. Deano’s version was always more playful than porno. Here, I’m giving you the cut-and-paste job rerecorded by the country singer Martina MacBride. Martina and Dean are very well suited and it really warms your cockles. After hearing this, why would I want to go outside…
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 5th : Number 21 : Lara’s Theme from Doctor Zhivago – Maurice Jarre
There are plenty of really cold places on earth, my bedroom for starters especially when that north wind blows. I’ve kissed a few cold mouths too. Apparently the coldest inhabited place on our planet is Omyakon, a tiny village in Yakutia in the Russian Far East. In 1924 they recorded an outside temperature of -71.2°c (that’s -96.2°f to anyone not used to the Celsius system). Now I’m not an expert, but that sounds seriously cold. Many people share a concept that Russia is always in some sort of permanent winter, and, as the country straddles several continents and climate zones, there are an awful lot of snowy places. The infamous phrase ‘The Russian Winter’ conjures up images of Napoleonic soldiers trudging home, eating horses for survival, a defeated once glorious army and tons and tons of the white stuff. More recently perhaps we might think of Nazi’s besieged at Stalingrad, frozen petrol, a disastrous war on two fronts. The Russian army themselves believed the winter was their greatest ally. Never has such delicate beauty been utilized to such devastating effect. There is of course a terrible war being currently fought on what would once have been Russian territory, Ukraine. I am not going to dispute the rights, wrongs or otherwise of that or other conflicts. It is terrible however you read it. And the background to writer Boris Pasternak’s life and times is equally terrible, poverty, authoritarianism, abuse, control, death and destruction – all inhabit the climes of Zhivago’s wintery Russia. However, to take a more peaceable outlook, all that snow does make for some lovely landscapes: think Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago and their dacha covered in ice. Those snow scenes were actually filmed in Spain in the middle of a raging hot summer, but you get the general idea: a little slice of misty snowbound heaven accessed only by troika. The world premiere of Doctor Zhivago was on 22nd Dec. 1965, so we’re approaching the sixtieth anniversary of one of cinema’s great love stories. The movie has a tendency to be ponderous. The penchant in the sixties for 3 hour blockbuster movies was rife and director David Lean, having submitted audiences to 3 ¾ hours of Lawrence of Arabia’s desert sands reckoned they could handle 180 minutes of snow. In fact many critics couldn’t and panned the movie as over indulgent, slow, poorly acted and lacking emotion. They’d reckoned without the power of Maurice Jarre’s music. It’s the balalaika theme which really brings the film to life, encapsulating everything that is delicate and desirable and memorable about Julie Christie’s Lara. Even now she may seem a bit modern for most tastes (though not nearly as modern as Kiera Knightley’s TV version who stripped off her clothes at every possible opportunity – nice, but not necessary) yet for my emotions, Christie does more than cut the mustard, she makes the screen glow warm and wonderful. Omar Sharif’s Zhivago is, frankly a cad, especially to his wife and child, but dear God, you can understand what he sees in Lara. And so did Maurice Jarre. An excellent theme for snow covered love scenes. You can almost hear the sleds sigh as they whistle over the snow and Zhivago’s heart strings pull as he realizes he’s never going to see his beloved again. Wonderfully romantic; bloody cold…
I enjoyed reading that so much, fellow Elvis fan that I am, that I went to put on his Christmas album (the first one, of course). I got distracted by Dino, though, and ended up playing "A Winter Romance". Lovely stuff, though more of a Winter album I think than a Christmas one and none the worse for that.
I’m enjoying this thread very much, lots of background material and personal thoughts I’ve been travelling back home last couple of days so catching up with this is helping get over jet lag 😁
That is much appreciated. Thanks guys. More to follow - obviously...
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 6th : Number 20 : Christmastime is Killing Us from Road to the North Pole – Family Guy
A bit of cynicism never killed anyone. Family Guy is possibly the most cynical cartoon show ever produced. It’s hilarious at times. It’s provocative at others. It’s sarcastic. It’s vicious. It’s ironic. It’s caustic. It’s satirical. It’s often hard to know if one should really be laughing. They do some great stuff like ripping off the Star Wars trilogy – I mean if you can make a half hour cartoon spoof version of Return of the Jedi and make it better than the original you really are succeeding. They also do some dreadfully heartless sketches about AIDs victims, serial killers or wife beaters . Occasionally I find the show quite sickening. But often there is a warm heart struggling to get past the cold and inhospitable outer layers. It is unusual however to find that warmth in the form of Stewie, the genius baby who may or may not be a cross dressing homosexual but is definitely a megalomaniac in development. His left wing leaning partner in disaster is the drunk and drug fuelled sex maniac failed writer, Brian the Dog. These two spa with each other terrifically and are far and away the most rounded characters in the show, given that they share an interdependency by being the only truly intelligent people living on Spooner Street. They share many bizarre adventures together includinga series of standalone episodes all titled ‘Road to’ imitating those old Bing Crosby / Bob Hope vehicles: Road to Europe, Rhode Island, Vegas, etc. and the most rewarding episode Road to the Multiverse. The latter has often been cited as the best ever Family Guy chapter and it is genuinely brilliant, a classic confrontation of worlds and other worlds, people and places, hap and mishap, impishness and deep-thought; here words and pictures combine faultlessly and joyously. However, things take a turn to the dark side (back to Star Wars again…) in Road to the North Pole. There have been almost a dozen Family Guy Christmas Episodes and many of them are not particularly Christmassy – take The 2000 Year Old Virgin where Jesus owns a record store and Peter renews his love affair with the song Surfin’ Bird. However Road to the North Pole while retaining an air of scepticism and rollicking obscenity laden humour, at least eventually has its heart in the right place, a process as timeless as any TV sitcom Christmas Special should be. This time out, Stewie wants to meet Santa Claus and his journey turns into something of a nightmare: from a rude brush off in a shopping mall grotto to pollution belching toy factories in the Arctic, from mutated reindeer and diseased elves to murder on Christmas Eve. It takes a strong stomach to watch and I wouldn’t advise anyone to let their kids see it. There is a moral however, in that Stewie and Brian realise it is everyone’s greed which has turned chubby cheerful Father Christmas into Psycho Santa, and they aim to set the whole world straight. This song comes at the moment they recognize something is horribly wrong at the North Pole, and we might just recognise some of our own faults in the narrative, but please, please, hide this from young children…
And yes - you can singalong with subtitles !
I too am enjoying these reviews, though a few paragraph breaks never hurt anyone.
I think Barry might have been trying to do a Laura's Theme with We Have All the Time In The World - it pops up recurrently in different forms throughout OHMSS - a soft focus one with Tracey in the wintery ski lodge or hut, and a brooding militaristic version at other times.
In my vinyl collection I've got a box of Christmas singles but they're not all seasonal - some songs just seem to evoke that time of year, such as Ultravox's Vienna, the Human League's Don't You Want Me or Hue and Cry's Labour of Love, with it's 'so cold, so cold' refrain.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I’ve never seen Family Guy, so this is the first song on the list I haven’t heard of. From @chrisno1’s review of the programme I’m not sure if I would want to see it or not - it’s half yes and half no. I haven’t clicked on the song to hear it, I may do so at some point.
Thanks, guys.
re: paragraphs: I was going for the stream of conciousness feel.
re: Christmas songs / albums VS Winter songs / albums - not a difference I had ever considered before @Barbel although now it has been mentioned, I can see the difference. Does a Christmas song have to mention Christmas? Does it even need to be released at Christmas? As pointed out above by @Napoleon Plural some songs conjure Christmas without even being Christmassy [I will be highlighting that here as well] so surely a winter themed song do the same.
Family Guy is an aquired taste @CoolHandBond the song is a satire on the inexorable rise of the commercial Christmas.
Some winter songs become associated with Christmas, others don't. It's not a huge difference, of course.
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 7th : Number 19 : Sleigh Ride – Leroy Anderson & Orchestra
The 1963 opus A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector has for many a decade been considered the most perfect encapsulation of the American Christmas pop record. Its thirteen tracks are all immaculately produced with that unmistakable Philadelphia Wall of Sound vibrating your speakers from the opening bars of Darlene Love’s White Christmas to the tail off on Bob B. Soxx’s Here Comes Santa Claus. There are jingle bells, swirling strings, rolling percussion, slapped cymbals, plucked keys, booming horns, tinny tubular bells, gunned guitars and hugely vociferous vocals. Spector crammed the whole of his retinue into the studio for month after month for retake after retake until he got the exact sound he wanted. No fancy post production overdubbing. This was all achieved on standard two-track mono. It’s more a monument to perseverance, fortitude and sheer bloody-mindedness than a homage to all things Christmassy. The years haven’t been very kind to it. The songs need to be played really loud to get the Wall of Sound Experience and modern CD players tend to show up many of the defects in the original mono production. So if that isn’t an advert for vinyl, I don’t know what is. Unavoidable problems from thsi method, on LP or CD, are when the voices are too low, or the reverse when the music is too far in the background, one assumes because the microphones were too far away. Occasionally the music grates or the singers get lost among the musical fireworks. The track which really works best is the Ronettes rendition of Sleigh Ride! This cheery, bouncy number is a brilliant three minute salvo which takes you by the ear and makes you want to listen. The bass is gently plump, the strings waft across the guitars and drums, the maracas and bells timbre discreetly in the background. When the girls stop singing and the eight-break takes off, a host of violins kick in and your whipped away to that sleigh, the horses hooves pounding, the snow-scape whistling past, the wind at your face; your cheeks really do start to feel rosy and you want to cuddle up all warm and cosy. The song’s so good Roy Wood was obliged to steal the final bars (a repeating horse-neigh jingle) for the fade out of Wizzard’s famous glam rock festive offering I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. Indeed Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes have much the best of this saga, getting to tease Frosty the Snowman and see Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, while poor Darlene Love, despite being Spector’s go-to girl, had to wait some three decades for her best festive offering when she sang the theme song for Home Alone 2, the Spector inspired All Alone on Christmas. Well now, back to the snow and sleighs. The song is an American composition of surprisingly recent times (1948). It was written by Leroy Anderson and first performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra. Mitchell Parrish’s lyrics came later and did not specifically mention Christmas; alternative seasonal versions switch the phrase ‘birthday party’ for ‘Christmas party’. It’s too easy to slap on the Phil Spector version, and anyway the producer has a tarnished reputation, so instead lets listen to a version by the original composer, arranger, conductor and producer Leroy Anderson with his own orchestra, the Pops Concert Promenade. So, let me present to you an invigorating, blissful Sleigh Ride…
This video has some excellent artistic visual representations to compliment the music.
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 8th : Number 18 : Winter – The Rolling Stones
Paul McCartney was well used to the Christmas number one spot. He was there four times with the Beatles, once more with Wings and again with Band Aid 20. You’d think his ear for a catchy commercial hit would lend itself to recording a great Christmas tune, but sadly that hasn’t happened [yet?]. There was a twee little ditty called Wonderful Christmastime way-back-when which is annoyingly catchy in McCartney’s annoyingly commercial way, but he’s never really tried to crack the Christmas walnut in earnest. His 1985 single Pipes of Peace isn’t really about Christmas, it’s more a follow up to Ebony and Ivory, a sort of ‘let’s all get along folks, then our kids can do better, if we all try real hard’ kind of song. Aided by a rather good video recreating the first Christmas in the trenches during World War One, the single, which probably wouldn’t have done very much otherwise, leapt up the festive chart. It didn’t make number one until the New Year, but it’s remained a hardy seasonal favourite ever since. The video immediately brings to mind Jona Lewie’s Stop the Cavalry. Now there is a good song, three minutes of anti-war propaganda which feels rather relevant right now, being more an anti-war hymn than a seasonal song, although it does sound like it ought to be festive with all those bells, Salvation Army Bands and an obvious mention of Christmas. In comparison, both McCartney’s song and video appear a bit simplistic, too easy on the ear and soft on the politics, and I always feel a little let down after a listen. In fact I always feel let down by Mr. McCartney. For every My Love and Yesterday there’s a C Moon or a Frog Chorus. For such a good writer, he does churn out some real drivel. For that reason, I’m not playing the Pipes of Peace. Nor am I stopping any cavalry: despite that song’s haunting lyrics I can’t get past the jaunty ‘dub a dub a dumb dumb dub a dub dubadum dub a dub dubadum dubadum’ malarkey. Instead you can have the Rolling Stones Winter, and that’s not a Christmas song either, but it is excellent and I am a fan, so tough titty, plus it does have Mick Taylor’s wonderfully melodic guitar licks…
You can try and sing-a-long-a-mick to this one too..
Plaudits for including Winter in this countdown. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it listed before in any Christmas song list, probably because it’s not actually about Christmas, but it thoroughly deserves its entry, certainly more so than some of the ones usually included in generic lists at this time of year.
Thank you. Winter is one of several tracks credited to Jagger/Richards which had nothing to do with Keith Richards at all, it was written by Mick Jagger and Mick Taylor ; Keith's playing doesn't even feature on the song. This kind of fakery was one of the reasons Taylor left the band. Bill Wyman had a similar experience with Jumping Jack Flash where the whole song was based on an initial bass line he demonstrated. Jagger & Richards have never apologised or offered to retrospectively share credit where it is due, which is disappointing considering all the good work they do generally.
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 9th : Number 17 : Once Upon A Christmas Song – Geraldine McQueen (aka Peter Kay)
From the sublime to the ridiculous… If you’d just been transported from some alien culture, like France for instance, you may be forgiven for thinking that 21st Century Christmas music meant something called The X Factor. Starting as early as 2002 when Girls Aloud launched themselves at us with the mind-gratingly amateurish Sound of the Underground, Simon Cowell’s SiCo Entertainment have fostered us with: Shayne Ward (That’s My Goal) Leona Lewis (A Moment Like This) Leon Jackson (When You Believe) Alexandra Burke (Hallelujah) Matt Cardle (When We Collide) Sam Bailey (Skyscraper) Ben Haenow (Something I Need). Of late, there’s been the odd dramatic interlude from the Military Wives or the Justice Collective, and something peculiar about Sausage Rolls, but essentially it’s a grim old line up of wannabes and charity bees which kills the once established excitement of the Christmas chart. Perhaps only Ed Sheeran bucked the trend in 2017 with his pop ballad Perfect. Perfect for copping off with an unfortunate colleague at the Christmas Party – do they still do Christmas Parties? Are we still allowed to behave like that? Not sure. Still at least Perfect hung around for a month like the songs used to when the shops shut down and the Gallup sales compilers went on holiday for a fortnight. Of course I’m aware that the chart is no longer any indicator of the public’s real taste in music – downloads far outstrip sales and are frequently different to the official sales chart – and I’m also aware that talent shows have always introduced new acts to the world. Many winners of ITVs 1970s show New Faces can testify to that. But there lies a fundamental difference. The acts on New Faces were often proven performers already. They understood how to woo and audience. They already had the ‘X Factor’ and simply needed a national platform to demonstrate it. Not so the winners of Cowell’s project – or projects if you include his bastard child Britain’s Got Talent – or even the proponents of those charity singles – all of whom almost universally sink without trace a year after success. It is often the second placed acts like Will Young or Susan Boyle who seem to have the genuine talent. The whole soap opera saga of picking one of these winners seems to fascinate a portion of television society, so we learn of their family backgrounds, diet, education, tantrums, tiaras and sex life. Oh, sorry, Reg Dwight, was that a different soap opera. The whole gaudy parcel is prime meat for a piss take hence Peter Kay’s 2008 show Britain’s Got the Pop Factor, starring the elephantine songstress Geraldine McQueen and featuring several prominent contributors to the talent show genre, all clearly in on the game. Kay’s parody of the talent show is astute, ice cold cutting and damnably hilarious. It’s sometimes a little heavy handed but his character’s actions reflect the dysfunctional nature of the real talent competitions and the people who watch and vote for them. Perhaps best of all he really does elicit sympathy for Geraldine, a post-op transgender singer destined for stardom. Her version of The Winner’s Song made number two, which just shows anyone can do it even with a piss take, and the follow up Once Upon a Christmas Song made number five. Now, I know what you’re thinking: why is this load of crud in Chris’s Crimbo Countdown? Well, because it’s a charity single sung by a star who isn’t going into oblivion fast, it is fun, silly and, as Peter Kay sings and Gary Barlow wrote the tune it’s “getting in your head.” If a Christmas jingle doesn’t chime in between your ears for weeks it really isn’t worth the paper it’s written on and while those X Factor starlets vanish with never a trace this tune, despite being possibly the worst track on my countdown, keeps getting in my bloody head…
I don't watch any of those shows, but that was funny. Funny in a "musical sketch on a comedian's Christmas show" way, and not something to listen to repeatedly.
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 10th : Number 16 : Journey to Blofeld’s Hideaway from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – John Barry
Christmas Day when I was a youngster always meant James Bond. There was always a Bond film on telly at 3.15pm, just after the Queen’s Speech, and I remember Mum and Dad being good enough to ensure the big Christmas dinner was done and dusted in time to watch the Queen and for me and my brother to watch the latest Bond premiere. This was all before the days of endless repeats on ITV4, DVDs, online streaming, video, etc. In those far off days a Bond movie being on TV was a major event. There was a three year embargo on films being shown on television which was designed to preserve the cinema experience. Don’t forget in the seventies and eighties movies still did the national rounds and an expensive celluloid print would run for six months in London before being shipped out to play in the sticks well after the initial excitement of release had passed. Films had a much longer theatrical run back then. Anyway, I remember many a happy Christmas afternoon enthralled by Bond’s adventures. They seemed very fresh and even the mocking tone of Roger Moore didn’t seem to grate among the exotic locations and beautiful girls and sudden violence. There isn’t much sense of the seasons in a Bond film, unless he goes skiing, and George Lazenby’s one and only attempt at Bond-age, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was OO7s first venture onto the slopes and actually takes place at Christmastime. It’s one of the better efforts, sticks close to its source novel and has some excellent performances from the supporting cast. One of the best aspects of the Bond films has always been the music and this one does not disappoint. John Barry crafted a magical score, full of sharp intense guitars, stirring strings and heart stoppingly tense interludes. It’s almost a masterpiece. One of the low points (well, the only low point) is a rather out of place festive song sung by Nina entitled Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown? It feels a bit out of place and crops up at moments of high suspense for no apparent reason. Strangely it reached number one in Germany; but then there’s no accounting for taste in the world of Bond. I’m not going to play you that. Nor will I play Louis Armstrong’s love theme, beautiful though it is. No, you’re getting Journey to Blofeld’s Hideaway which shows off Barry’s ability to manipulate the audience’s emotions through the music. The lush interlude transports us right into the awe inspiring beauty of the Swiss Alps and we feel the wonder as Bond is flown by helicopter to the villain’s fantastical nerve centre, Piz Gloria. There’s some stupendous photography too, but the music’s the key. James Bond was never been treated so luxuriously by a composer again…
Absolutely, stunningly beautiful.
One of my favourite tracks from the whole series 🍸
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 11th : Number 15 : Driving Home for Christmas – Chris Rea
In this day and age, people’s families are spread across the country and often the world. People work and live in areas of the globe which past generations would only have dreamed of and their contact with friends and family is often minimal. Gone are the days of generations of family like the Jones’s living in the same four or five streets around somewhere like Dudley, meeting in the pub and Aunt Ethel’s front lounge and the church hall, for breakfast, lunch, tea, supper and a singsong. At one time perhaps the Jones’s might have known someone in the military or the oil industry who spent time abroad. They might have known lighthouse keepers, cruise ship workers, foreign aid nurses, pilots, missionaries; I’m sort of guessing right now. Essentially the globe has got much smaller and that has opened the world to opportunity for the Jones’s. The European Union has certainly made it easier for people of one nation to gain a livelihood in another, although the UK seems to have thrown that option away, for better or worse. What I am certain of is that even when economic or political migrants make homes in countries different from their birth, their heart often remains at home. And not just for Christmas; birthdays, anniversaries, national days, all those become lost. With this in mind, I think it’s worth reflecting on that journey home. Not the one across thousands of miles from Dubai to the Jones’s terrace in Dudley – they’ve gone up in the world, see – but the lesser journey. You know the one. The one you take back to your parents. The one you take to see your friends. The one you make on the last day of work, when you’ve clocked off early, the sun has set and you know there’s a warm mince pie in the oven. It doesn’t even have to be on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, maybe it’s a New Year celebration or a party at an in-between weekend. It might be a trip abroad, perhaps to meet and stay in a chalet, or a villa, or a just a hotel on the cold English coast. There are many reasons to travel and visit at Christmas and the record which best sums up all those feelings of joy and anticipation is Chris Rea’s sublime Driving Home for Christmas, a flop when it was first released, but a minor hit when it was remastered and reissued, eventually becoming a perennial favourite of shop PA systems and radio stations. Rea’s rasping vocals add weariness to the song, which genuinely makes you feel this guy has been at the wheel for hours and is desperate to get home to his loved ones. Maybe he’s still stuck on the M25, inspiration for his brilliant The Road to Hell album. Driving Home For Christmas has a deceptively simple tune, with minimal seasonal touches. The piano seems to replicate the turning wheels, on and on and on, and you can almost feel the snow drifting down as the wiper blades flick it off the screen and the Christmas lights of home come into view. Ceaselessly, melodically romantic in an obscure almost underplayed fashion, this, I’ll be upfront, is one of my Christmas favourites…
And yes, more karaoke videos...
Fabulous! The best Bond soundtrack and the best Bond film, nuff said!
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 12th : Number 14 : Bring Me Sunshine – Morecambe and Wise
On researching the songs for this countdown and the reasons why I wanted to include them, I considered many factors. There was the joy factor, the seasonal content factor, the fun factor, the great singer factor, the classic composition, the Christmas memories, etc. etc. One artist who best identities many of these factors is the underrated Emperor of the Lounge, the late great Andy Williams, as smooth an American singer as you can possibly get. His career stretched back decades, since well before the birth of rock and roll, although he didn’t make it big until 1956 when his version of Canadian Sunset made the top ten in America. He was always bigger in the US than the UK and many of his best known tracks never charted over here. Perhaps his biggest claim to fame was as host of America’s top entertainment show, which ran for a decade and continued intermittently until 1990s, often under the guise of The Andy Williams Christmas Show. These seasonal specials are recognized as being some of the best in the business and eight festive albums, often including his signature hit The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, are a testament to the man referred to by TV executives as ‘Mister Christmas’. But while I like Andy, and his original Christmas album is a classic of the ilk, he’s too US of A for me. We had our own alternative on BBC, that lilting Irish crooner Val Doonican, but he isn’t quite chummy enough and, while my Nan loved him, everyone else in my house used to leave the room when his show came on. No. There was another Christmas delight which always brought in the ratings, provided much joy and laughter and was, by virtue of recreating the musical hall farce in all its forms, quintessentially British: Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. I’ve never been the greatest of fans, but I fully appreciate the time, energy and skill required to create every second of what you see on television. Perhaps I’ve been dulled by endless repeats. Perhaps I shrug at their gentle unthreatening patter. But occasionally they summon from somewhere a routine that makes you laugh and cry and ache all at once: Andre Previn and Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Shirley Bassey and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Elton John constantly deceived, or Angela Rippon dancing, or any number of audience facing routines in front of a gold curtain. I could pick out any one and more of those clips. Instead, as this is a music chart, I’ve picked out their theme song. The twosome usually interrupted Bring Me Sunshine with some jossing about and curtailed the singing with their famous skip dance, but I’ve found the full recorded version, which is rather good and demonstrates their ability as a traditional song and dance team. I was surprised to learn it’s an American tune, so that rather brings us full circle and back to Andy Williams. No. That’s rubbish. It doesn’t. Come on, Eric & Ernie, bring me a little Christmas sunshine…
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 13th : Number 13 : The Hokey Cokey – The Snowmen
It’s about time we considered that British chart curio: the novelty record. I hate novelty records. They are by and large extremely annoying, in poor taste, musically dubious and almost always not very funny. There are a few exceptions to the last point. You’ll know the ones: Monty Python, Joe Dolce, Peter Sellers, the Goodies, etc. Christmas is traditionally the time for a novelty record to have its greatest impact. It could be argued that every Christmas record is a novelty of sorts, but the sheer volume of them rather negates that argument; they are more a sub-section of pop music, the forgotten son as it were. Novelty records are a whole category apart. A quick look back over charts gone by brings us fearsome numbers from the likes of Mr. Blobby, the Teletubbies, Scaffold (the earliest novelty Xmas number one), Clive Dunn, Jive Bunny, Rene and Renata, the Flying Pickets, Rolf Harris (now on the banned list), Benny Hill, Little Jimmy Osmond and the St Winifred’s School Choir. And that’s just the ones that topped the chart. It’s a grim list more akin to Halloween. There are many more acts that never even dented the top end of the Christmas lists that are just as dreadful. So in tribute to all those who tried and failed, I give you The Hokey Cokey, a 1981 hit for the aptly named Snowmen, which does go down as a tip-top terrible record but which curiously succeeds, mainly through the bizarrely catchy vocals [which may or may not have been from Ian Dury]. Along with that punk non-classic Nelly the Elephant by the Toy Dolls, this was a staple at 1980s teenage Christmas & New Year parties, usually played just after midnight when everyone’s pissed and cares not a jot what they look like dancing. It helped of course that you already knew the actions. Ah, youth, there you have it in a nutshell: drink, bad music, bad kisses, bad dancing, forgotten parties, long gone friends; it was all a bit of a novelty wasn’t it? And you’d do it all again given the chance. Well, maybe not all of it…
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 14th : Number 12 : Santa Baby – Pussycat Dolls plus Carmen Elektra
They say Christmas is all about the giving, but if anyone needed any affirmation that Christmas is in fact all about the receiving, they only have to listen to the lyrics of Santa Baby, that seductively raunchy little number first launched on us by Eartha Kitt in 1953. In it the singer outlines a series of gifts Santa needs to fit down her chimney, including a sable, a yacht, a light blue 54 convertible and of course an engagement ring. No mention of a mince pie and a glass of port for this poor old Santy. He’s really got his work cut out for this greedy gal. Despite its selfish theme, the song’s actually quite good fun, a bit of a tease, a bit different from the standard Christmas tunes about chestnuts, trees and snowmen. Our Eartha isn’t the only one who enjoyed reciting that long list: Peggy Lee, Madonna, Kylie and Michael Bublé (lyrics tactfully changed to reflect he’s a guy) are among many artists to have begged for presents in a huskily, sexy manner. But you’re not getting any of those sanitized versions today. This is the era of Black Friday, the bargain hunt, the rank commercialization of Christmas. It’s also the era of the self, self-image, self- absorbed, self-confident. And somewhere in the mix, that usually means someone is selling sex. Commercially. For themselves. Everywhere. Even at Christmas. So, adults only please, let’s take a sneaky peek at the Pussycat Dolls with Carmen Electra. If Santa makes it down their chimney, he won’t ever want to leave. Christmas is never like this in my house…
It's a really bad copy... sorry...
We're due another one, where is it?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Patience, NP, patience; all good things etc.
CHRIS'S CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
It is the season to be festive.
I love a challenge.
25 songs in 25 days.
A Chrisno1 Christmas Challenge.
It's an advent calendar, but not as you know it.
December 15th : Number 11 : Troika from Lieutenant Kyje – Sergei Prokofiev
I’ve mentioned snow rides plenty of times in this countdown already and whether it snows or not the image of a sleigh being pulled over a white crystal landscape retains a host of seasonal connotations, what with snow, ice, sleighs, ruffles, muffles and warm rugs, horses, reindeer, etc, etc. So at the risk of sounding repetitive, some of the best seasonal music does choose to replicate the swishing sound of those sleigh skis and the tinkle tangle of bells. I was very tempted to include Frank Sinatra’s brilliant rendition of Jingle Bells which, as arranged by Nelson Riddle, is the jolliest thing on his album A Jolly Christmas with Frank Sinatra. Trust me, the rest of the LP is dreary run of traditional carols which sound as if God hated music and modern romantic numbers which rather than break your heart would make you want to slit your wrists. It’s a maudlin Christmas display and from an artist renowned for his ebullient swing and big band repertoire it is a huge disappointment. The thought of it made me shudder, so to get over that I hunted down Sergei Prokofiev and his musical interlude Troika, written for the soundtrack to the 1934 movie Lieutenant Kyje, a score which he subsequently adapted into an orchestral suite. Prokofiev is without doubt one of the twentieth century’s greatest composers, indeed one of Russia’s greatest composers; hell, he’s just great, period. Troika is a light piece but he pulls out all the stops to create a timeless moment of musical atmosphere, a piece which depicts elegantly and brilliantly the motion of the three-horse Russian troika. As with the best incidental scores, Prokofiev’s music isn’t just about the sleigh, it’s about the wait for the troika to arrive, the mounting, the joy of the journey, the anticipation of arrival and the fun the characters have as the travel through the snowy hills outside Saint Petersburg. Troika was never written as a Christmas piece, but for a little over two minutes this is a Christmas scene that will forever sound perfect…