Stories Behind the Classic Christmas Singles
The stories behind some of the best loved Christmas singles, Slade, The Pogues, Cliff Richard, Brenda Lee +++ Classic Christmas Singles
BBC Radio York: 18 to 22 December 2017: Every day this week at 1.40 pm (UK).
Adam and Anna’a Afternoon Show BBC Radio York 12.00 to 4.00 pm (UK), Monday to Friday.
Derek Shelmerdine is a guest on Adam Tomlinson and Anna Wallace’s Afternoon Show all this week and will be telling the stories behind three classic Christmas singles every day.
Part 1: MONDAY 18 December:
Paul McCartney – Dora Bryan – David Essex
Paul McCartney: Wonderful Christmastime 1979
Written and produced by Paul McCartney, it peaked at #6. Wings recorded it around the time of the split up. Paul McCartney recorded another solo album, McCartney II.
Dora Bryan: All I Want for Christmas is a Beatle 1963
Born in Lancashire in 1924, she was a star of stage and screen, including the movies, The Blue Lamp (which led to TV’s Dixon of Dock Green), Carry on Sergeant and A Taste of Honey. The single peaked at #20.
David Essex: A Winter’s Tale 1982
In 1978 David Essex played Che Guevara in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage show Evita. Four years later, Essex decided to record a Christmas song. He asked Tim Rice, who teamed up with Mike Batt and they gave him a #2 hit
IF YOU MISSED PART 1: BBC iPlayer – Derek starts at 1:40:50 Available for 30 days…
Part 2: TUESDAY 19 December:
Cliff Richard – Elvis Presley – Chris Rea
Cliff Richard: Mistletoe and Wine 1988
Written for the musical, Scraps, it was adapted from Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl and first performed at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London in 1976. HTV adapted the play for television in 1987 as The Little Match Girl, starring Roger Daltrey and Twiggy. They wrote the song to sound like a carol but sung ironically. HTV’s adaptation contrasted the lives of the haves and have-nots in Victorian London.
Cliff liked the song but changed the lyrics to sound more religious.
To watch The Little Match Girl
Elvis Presley Blue Christmas 1964
Blue Christmas goes back to 1948, originally recorded by Doye O’Dell, a band leader and highly respected banjo player. Country legend Earnest Tubb recorded it in 1949. In 1957 Elvis released it on his Elvis’s Christmas Album backed by stalwarts: Bill Black, DJ Fontana, Scotty Moore and The Jordanaires. Elvis released the song in 1964 and it peaked #11.
Chris Rea Driving Home for Christmas
In an interview on Radio 4’s Today in December 2009, he explained how the inspiration for the song came from being stuck in heavy traffic in North London. Times were hard and his wife had driven to London to pick him up and take him back to Middlesbrough. The song was first released as a B-side in 1986 and again in ’87, before becoming the title track of his 1988 offering The Christmas EP. He described the song as a “car version of a carol”.
To listen to the Today interview
IF YOU MISSED PART 2: BBC iPlayer – Derek starts at 1:45:05 Available for 30 days…
Part 3: WEDNESDAY 20 December:
Bruce Springsteen – Band Aid – Greg Lake
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen: Santa Clause is coming to Town 1985
Eddie Cantor debuted the song on his radio show in November 1934. The original record release was by Harry Reser and his orchestra in 1934.
Bruce Springsteen recorded his version live at CW Post College, Greenvale, New York, on 12 December 1975. To put that into context, it was just a month after he made his European debut. The song peaked at #9.
This is a popular Christmas song. The early 1960s saw releases from artists as diverse as, 4 Seasons, The Platters, The Miracles, Brenda Lee, The Beach Boys and The Crystals, on Phil Spector’s legendary Christmas album, A Christmas Gift for You.
Band Aid: Do They Know It’s Christmas? 1984
The song was written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, in response to the famine in Ethiopia. The lyrics were based on Bob Geldof’s existing song It’s My World. The lineup comprised some of the biggest names of the time, including: Bono, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof, Tony Hadley, Martin Kemp, Midge Ure, Paul Young, Simon LeBon, Paul Weller, George Michael, Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Holly Johnson and Boy George. The cover artwork was by Peter Blake, who designed the iconic Sgt Pepper album cover for the Beatles.
Band Aid released Do They Know It’s Christmas? in 1984. It was the fastest selling UK single of all time, until Elton John’s Candle in the Wind 1997. It raised £8m, sold over 3 million copies and spent 5 weeks at #1.
Greg Lake: I Believe in Father Christmas 1975
Greg Lake was the bass player with King Crimson and Emerson Lake & Palmer. He wrote I Believe in Father Christmas with Pete Sinfield, his songwriting partner from his previous bands. The song was based on Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije Suite, written for the Russian movie of same name. The movie was released in America in 1934, as The Czar Wants to Sleep. The song was written as a protest against commercialism at Christmas.
It peaked at #2, kept from the #1 spot by Queen’s epic Bohemian Rhapsody, which spent nine weeks at #1.
IF YOU MISSED PART 3: BBC iPlayer – Derek starts at 1:35:20 Available for 30 days…
Classic Christmas Singles
Part 4: THURSDAY 21 December:
The Pogues – Adam Faith – Bing Crosby
more Classic Christmas singles
The Pogues: Fairytale of New York 1987
Written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan, produced by Steve Lillywhite. The song came about when Elvis Costello wagered Shane MacGowan that he couldn’t write a Christmas duet with Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan. Finer had already written an abandoned Christmas song and this was used for the melody. The lyrics were frequently reworked. Cait O’Riordan recorded a version before she left the band in 1986. Steve Lillywhite came onto the scene as their new producer. He was married to Kirsty MacColl and she took over the female role in the song.
The song’s name came from JP Donleavy’s book, A Fairy Tale of New York, which Jem Finer was reading at the time. The record peaked at #2, kept from the top spot by the Pet Shop Boys’ Always on My Mind.
To listen to the demo version with Cait O’Riordan
Adam Faith: Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop) 1960
As well as being a successful singer, Adam Faith found fame as an actor, on the TV in Budgie and the movie Stardust with David Essex. He originally found fame as a singer, with the skiffle group The Worried Men. He changed his name from Terry Nelhams to Adam Faith and went on to an extremly successful career. His first hit, What Do You Want was released in late 1959 and was a #1 hit. In 1960 he had five top-5 hits, including Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop) which peaked at #4.
Bing Crosby: White Christmas 1942
Irving Berlin wrote White Christmas in 1940. Bing Crosby sang the first public performance on his NBC radio show Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day 1941. The song featured in the movie Holiday Inn, which premiered in New York on 4 August 1942. It was initially released as a 6-single release, as a part of the Holiday Inn soundtrack on 30 July 1942 and achieved the coveted #1 position on the National List of Retail Records chart in October 1942, where it stayed at #1 for eleven weeks.
In March 1947 White Christmas was re-recorded because the master recording had become damaged – this is the most-often played version.
50 million copies of White Christmas have been sold worldwide.
To listen to the 1942 version of White Christmas
To listen to the 1947 version of White Christmas
IF YOU MISSED PART 4: BBC iPlayer – Derek starts at 1:37:29 Available for 30 days…
Classic Christmas Singles
Part 5: FRIDAY 22 December:
Wizzard – Brenda Lee – Slade
more Classic Christmas singles
Wizzard: I Wish it Could Be Christmas every Day 1973
Written and produced by Roy Wood, it peaked at #4, beaten to the Christmas #1 by Slade.
At the time of recording this single the band was moving to a new record label, from EMI to Warner Brothers. Legal wrangles meant that the song was released on both labels. It was recorded in August, the band decorated the studio with Christmas decorations and brought in fans to really cool the place down. They played in overcoats – to get into Christmas spirit.
Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree 1958
Johnny Marks wrote Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. He also penned Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, a hit for the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree was not an immediate success. Brenda Lee released it in America in 1958 and 1959 to no avail. Her chart breakthrough came on both sides of the Atlantic with Sweet Nothin’s in early 1960. It was third time lucky for Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, the song gave Brenda Lee an American Christmas hit in 1960, peaking at #14.
Two years later, in 1962, charted in the UK.
Slade: Merry Xmas Everybody 1973
Slade’s masterpiece, Merry Xmas Everybody was released on 7 December 1973. It was written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea, and produced by manager Chas Chandler. It took 500,000 advance orders, went straight into the charts at #1 and stayed at the top for 5 weeks. Alas, their last #1.
The melody for the chorus was based on Buy Me A Rocking Chair, written by Noddy Holder in 1967, when the band were called the N’ Betweens. Jim Lea wrote the melody for the verse. Noddy wrote the lyrics, he wanted to reflect a typical British family Christmas and felt that the great British public needed cheering up. In 1973 times were hard, inflation was at 10% and growing, the 3-day week started on New Year’s Day, mortgage rates were 8.5% and rising, and income tax was 75% and rising…
The song was recorded at the Record Plant in New York, in July. Parts of it were recorded in the corridor for its great echo effect.
In 2009 PRS for Music (the people who gather royalties) estimated that 42% of the world’s population could have heard the song!
Noddy thought that there was a lot to look forward to – “Look to the future now, it’s only just begun.”
IF YOU MISSED PART 5: BBC iPlayer – Derek starts at 1:38:21 Available for 30 days…
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