Seasonal greetings, dear Puffins, and please be welcome to part six in our short series of articles, guaranteed to contain no weirdos, nothing obscure, nothing remotely challenging and no tunes not thoroughly well known to both the man on the Clapham omnibus an’ ‘is dear ol’ mum.
This week, as bulky birds throughout the land prepare to cease their gobbling and brace themselves for a jolly good stuffing, we’ll take a short break from our planned countdown of the UK’s best selling artistes and shall instead take a slight festive detour to get dahn wid da kidz and consider the top ten most popular Christmas classics wot ‘av been streamed over the last ten years or so.
This article was inspired by the splendid success of Freezing This Christmas, a parody song released as a digital download that righteously lambastes Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves over their decision to axe the UK winter fuel allowance for pensioners. As this single is also raising funds for Age UK, let’s hope for a thoroughly well deserved Christmas No.1.
In the meantime we shall move away from downloads and consider the streaming success of about a decade’s worth of Christmas charts. We kick things off at No.10 with Let It Snow – a song written (during a heatwave) in 1945 by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. First recorded by Vaughn Monroe, it became a Christmas hit and has since been covered by a goodly number of artists, including Frank Sinatra.
However, I think we shall have what is, for me at least, the definitive version, as recorded by Dean Martin in 1966 as part of his Dean Martin Christmas Album. He had previously recorded the song in 1959, but it’s his ’66 version that seems to re-enter the charts each and every year around Christmas time, and it has dutifully done so again at a very creditable No.10.
At No.9 it’s Andy Williams with his version of It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, written in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle, and first released on The Andy Williams Christmas Album. However, despite being a Christmas song, it recently seems to have become associated with summer holidays.
The travel company, On The Beach, has been using this song to flog its package holidays for quite some time and Staples (the office supply company – are they still a thing? I haven’t seen a branch for ages) used to deploy this song in their annual back-to-school campaigns, showing joyous parents gleefully shopping for the new school year while their downcast, sullen and deeply reluctant offspring plod miserably along behind. Nevertheless, it’s still a very fine Christmas tune.
At No.8 it’s the mighty Slade with Merry Christmas Everybody. My favourite performance of this classic came at the 1980 Reading Festival. Slade’s career seemed to be over, their singles weren’t selling, they had been reduced to the pub ‘n’ club chicken-in-a-basket circuit and were seriously thinking of calling it a day. Fate, however, was about to intervene: Ozzy Osbourne was booked to play at the festival, but pulled out at the last minute. Slade were offered the chance to come off the bench and take the slot. They agreed and set off with absolutely no time for preparation or rehearsal.
The Reading Festival that year was a genuine heavyweight rock extravaganza. Slade would be going toe-to-toe with some of the serious big hitters of the time: Whitesnake, UFO, Rory Gallagher, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Ian Gillan, Gary Moore, Budgie and many more. The result, of course, has gone down in rock history: Slade played an absolute blinder and completely stole the show. Their performance was a triumph – they rocked hard, kicked arse and completely revitalised their career.
However, at some point during their set, Noddy Holder asked the crowd if we had any requests. He was clearly expecting “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” or “Cum On Feel the Noize” to be our response. “Merry Christmas Everybody”, was the crowd’s reply. Clearly taken aback, Noddy suggested we sing it ourselves, so we did, very badly.
At No.7 it’s Driving Home For Christmas by Chris Rea. A bit of a slow burner, this one. It was originally released as a B-side in 1986 and didn’t get much attention. Chris re-recorded it in 1988 and released it again, this time as an A-side, but once again it failed to make an impression and certainly didn’t trouble the Top 40. However, it finally managed to make a dent in the UK Singles Chart in 2007, well over 20 years after its original release, and it has regularly and successfully charted every year since. It’s now a Christmas staple and features regularly whenever anyone anywhere runs a favourite Christmas song poll.
At No.6 it’s Brenda Lee’s version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, written by Johnny Marks and first recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958. It has of course been recorded by many artists, but, for my money at least, Ms. Lee’s version is still the original and the best. Clearly others agree and in 2023 Brenda’s peerless recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. As a result, it was re-released and promptly topped the US Billboard Chart, making Lee the oldest artist ever to have a No.1 US single at the ripe old age of 79.
N0.5 – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day by Wizzard. There was of course no such group as Wizzard, it was pretty much the multi-instrumental talents of Roy Wood with a few mates and hired guns brought in as and when necessary. Roy played guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, saxophones, French horn, woodwind, glockenspiel, tubular bells, cowbells, shakers, maracas, sleigh bells and, of course, a cash register. It was a hit in 1973, has returned to the UK chart every Christmas since 2011 and is probably our highest rated song with a blatant Christmas cocaine reference.
At No.4 it’s time for a Taffy. So let’s bring on Wales’ finest Elvis Presley impersonator, Shakin’ Stevens, with Merry Christmas Everyone. It was a massive Christmas No.1 hit in 1985, but was actually recorded for release in 1984. However, once the tedious Bob Geldof released his hugely successful Band Aid single, Do They Know It’s Christmas, more than one label decided to pull their planned Christmas singles and Shaky’s effort was one of the releases that got cancelled. Nevertheless, no harm done. The following year it was the UK’s Christmas No.1 and still re-enters the Christmas chart most years.
Our No.3 for this evening is 1987’s rather splendid Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl. In the UK it is reputed to be the most played Christmas song of the 21st century and is frequently cited as one of the best Christmas songs of all time. In fact, when ITV ran a poll in December 2012, it was indeed voted the nation’s favourite Christmas song of all time.
As a teeny bit of pop trivia, Kirsty MacColl’s splendid vocal track was not actually intended to be the final vocals for the duet with Shane MacGowan. It was recorded by MacColl simply as a “guide vocal” for whoever was finally chosen to sing on the record. However, the band were so impressed by Kirsty’s efforts that they decided to look no further – it was now done and dusted. Kirsty, as far as the band were concerned, had nailed it first time.
Our penultimate slot is filled by Last Christmas, by Wham. Released in 1984, Last Christmas was an absolute whopper of a hit, selling by the truckload and topping the charts in fourteen countries. However, although it spent five consecutive weeks at number two in the UK, it never made the top spot in ’84, being held off by the humongous Christmas hit that was Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? It did actually become a No.1 in 2021 and finally became Christmas number one in 2023, almost four decades after its initial release. And now that them there new-fangled streamy-downloady thingies are combined with physical sales, Last Christmas is believed to be the third biggest-selling song in UK chart history.
And so, with an appropriate sense of dread and inevitability, we dutifully slouch towards our No1 slot and face the all-conquering, planet-rogering, rough beast of a single that is known as Mariah Carey’s All I want For Christmas Is You.
The song was a huge success when first released, but surprisingly only reached number six in the US. However, it now annually re-enters the Christmas charts worldwide, has reached number one in over 30 countries and is one of the bestselling songs of all time. It is believed to have sold over 16 million copies worldwide, has estimated royalty earnings in excess of $100 million, has been selected by the US Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Recording Registry and apparently took Ms. Carey and her songwriting partner just 15 minutes to write.
Well that’s quite enough of the streamy-downloady thingies – it’s now time for a proper Christmas single. Not only is this the biggest selling Christmas single of all time, it is believed to be the biggest selling single of all time. It’s hard to be certain as accurate sales figures were not compiled when this monster of a hit was first released, but it’s widely accepted that well over 50 million physical copies of this record have been sold worldwide – and no Christmas playlist would be compete without it. It is of course Bing Crosby singing Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.
So that’s yer lot for this week’s Fabulously Festive Friday. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and thoroughly flamboyant new year.
TTFN, Puffins – Not ‘arf!
Featured Image: Birchflow, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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