Welcome back my friends to the flamboyance that never ends and please be welcome to yet another of our regular Campari soaked fumbles around the moist gusset of popular culture. Tonight, after our previous examination of Christmas albums, we shall take a seasonal look at another much maligned – and often deservedly so – genre of popular music: the Christmas single – Not Arf!
We’ve have of course enjoyed Christmas music for a very long time. Some of our favourite carols are now pretty ancient with many dating right back to the Middle Ages. However, the Christmas single, i.e. a song written and released specifically for the Christmas season, with the hopeful aim of topping the charts in December, is of course a distinctly modern cultural phenomenon.
The first major commercial Christmas hit is generally agreed to be Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (1934) by Eddie Cantor, closely followed by Winter Wonderland (1934) by Guy Lombardo. To be fair, neither of these songs were released as “Christmas singles” in the modern sense of the term, but they were both very popular tunes, became firm favourites, seasonal standards, and in fact both hold that status to this very day. However, I should probably point out that Jingle Bells was first published in 1857 and that became a very popular parlour song and subsequently sold hugely well on sheet music.
However, putting our disputed starting point to one side, the real Christmas single breakthrough came in 1942,with Bing Crosby’s recording of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Industry legend suggests the recording took less than 20 minutes and was only considered good enough to be filler material. History of course tells us it went on to become not only the best selling Christmas single of all time, but eventually the best selling single of all time, with well over 50 million copies sold worldwide. And, fun fact, pop pickers: in terms of best selling singles, Elton John finds himself in second place with Candle In The Wind – although it did take him two distinct versions (one for Marilyn Monroe and one for Diana, Princess of Wales) before he was able to slide comfortably into his well-earned No.2 slot.
Anyway, it was White Christmas that proved to the record labels that a Christmas song could dominate the charts, become a perennial hit and – far more importantly – become a perennial earner of substantial quantities of wonga. Additionally, without the huge cultural impact of White Christmas, we may never have been gifted with a series of 1940s follow-up Christmas singles such as The Christmas Song (1946) by Nat King Cole or It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (1951) by Perry Como. Although they could in no way match the popularity or profitability of White Christmas, their considerable success certainly underlined the viability and earnings potential of the Christmas single and, by the dawn of the 1950s, the seasonal single had become a firmly established and very profitable Christmas tradition.
There were of course a number of developments during the post-war Boom in the US that greatly enhanced the popularity and marketability of the Christmas single. The first of these was the invention and then industry adoption of the 7-inch, 45 RPM single – a format that proved to be far more convenient that the popular 78 RPM discs of the day. And then of course, along came the rise of that most foul and terrible of beasts: the teenager. Once these loathsome creatures had been unleashed upon the land, there was soon a jukebox in every cafe, a portable record player in every teen bedroom, and the subsequent sales of 7″ singles soared.
These developments helped to encourage the regular release of both Christmas singles and Christmas albums (Colombia records introduced the 12″ LP in 1948) throughout the 1950s. Key early milestones include Elvis Presley’s splendid 1957 Elvis’ Christmas Album, Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bell Rock (1958) – a track oft’ called the granddaddy of rock-n-roll Christmas songs – and Brenda Lee (aged just 13 at the time) with her magnificent Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (1958).
Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bell Rock just kept on charting, year after year, right into the middle of the 1960s; and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (for any young Puffins dat be dahn wid da kidz, popular beat combos and dem streamy downloady thingies) is now reckoned to be the most streamy downloady Christmas song from the 1950s and ’60s by quite some considerable margin.
Once Blighty had decided that all this 7″ chart nonsense dreamt up by our colonial cousins was actually a spiffing wheeze, we soon started catching up in the seasonal singles stakes. Early examples of UK Christmas chart success include Jimmy Boyd with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (1952), Bing Crosby with Silent Night (1952) and Mantovani with a cover version of White Christmas (1952). And, fun fact, pop pickers: until the Beatles came along, Annunzio Mantovani was the most successful artist in the UK in terms of album sales.
Anyway, apart from Mantovani, most of the early UK Christmas hits sounded very American. But that changed when things took a very English* turn in 1956 with I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas by The Goons. As this was a Spike Milligan composition (composed to fill a musical gap in a Goon Show episode beset by a musicians’ strike) it was of course released in the middle of summer. Nevertheless, it reached No.4 on the UK charts and so unsurprisingly remains, to this very day, the most successful British Christmas song to chart in June.
*and yes I know that Spike was born in India and grew up to be Irish, Harry was a proper Taffy with a proper set of Taffy lungs to prove it, and Michael Bentine was of fine Peruvian stock. Nevertheless, the surreal humour of the The Goons (largely penned by Spike) always felt very English to me, despite the somewhat cosmopolitan nature of the original team.
1957 saw the release of (the now much covered) Mary’s Boy Child by Harry Belafonte. It spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and was a big hit all over again, a year later, when a splendid cover version was released by the much-loved Puffin favourites, Nina & Frederik.
1958 was a vintage year that saw the release of the magnificent Run Rudolph Run by the legendary Chuck Berry (for my money the most influential electric guitarist of the second half of the 20th century), Winter Wonderland by Johnny Mathis (a track that has now been recorded by well over 200 different artists), and of course the aforementioned Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee.
1959 rounded off the decade with the release of one of my favourite Dean Martin Albums, A Winter Romance, which contained the hit single, Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow. Both album and single have since sold by the truckload.
So into the ’60s we go with a noticeably lightweight and novelty feel to the start of the decade in Britain, e.g. Lou Monte’s rather splendid Dominick the Donkey (1960), Nina & Frederik’s Little Donkey (1960), Adam Faith’s Lonely Pup In a Christmas Shop (1960), Tommy Steele’s Must Be Santa (1960), Lonnie Donegan’s Virgin Mary (1960), Baby’s First Christmas (1961) by Connie Francis and It Must Be Santa (1961) by Joan Regan.
However, there was nothing lightweight about the 1963 release of the legendary Phil Spector album, A Christmas Gift For You. I was going to include this album in my previous Christmas album missive. But as so many of the tracks on this legendary album have gone on to become hit singles and stone cold Christmas classics, I thought it might sit more comfortably here. It is, without the slightest scintilla of doubt, the most played Christmas album at Chez Cutlery. Rolling Stone rank it as the greatest Christmas album of all time, Brian Wilson brushed aside similar claims for his own (truly wonderful) Beach Boys Christmas Album and instead cast his vote for Phil’s album, and Robert Dimery included it in his list of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It’s an absolute corker.
The album didn’t do particularly well on release. It came out in the US on the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the understandably downbeat mood of the nation in the run-up to that year’s festive season probably didn’t do its sales much good. However, it grew in popularity over the following years and eventually earned platinum certification – and almost every track on this album is a Christmas classic.
Elvis Presley of course had a cracking Christmas time in the 60s. By 1964 he was already firmly established as the world’s premier Shakin’ Stevens impersonator and was enjoying staggering international success. His 1957 release, Elvis’ Christmas Album, had sold by the truckload. So, in 1964, his record label plucked Blue Christmas from the album and released it as a single. It was a whopping hit all over the world (although I prefer The Beach Boys version) and dragged the Elvis Presley Christmas Album right back into the charts. His record label played the same trick the following year, this time releasing Santa Claus Is Back In Town, shifting yet more copies of the album on the back of the single’s success. Of course, back then our Elvis didn’t go messin’ around with no mickey mouse Silver, Gold and Platinum certifications. Oh, no – it was Diamond certification all the way for the Pelvis, with his album eventually becoming the world’s best selling Christmas album of all time – and it remains, to this day, one of the best selling albums of all time.
Right then – I think it’s high time we wandered into the middle of the road to take a look at some of the Christmas singles that blighted, um.., that were much played by my parents during the formative years of my youth. First up, Max Bygraves with Jingle Bell Rock (1959). Max was a firm favourite of my dear ol’ Mum and this record was a regular refrain throughout my childhood Crimbos. As, unfortunately, was Burl Ives with A Holly Jolly Christmas (1964) and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1965).
I primarily think of Ives as an actor – and indeed he was an Academy Award winning actor – but he was also a highly regarded folk singer. However, in the early 1950s he was nabbed by the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities and accused of being a no-good, low-down, filthy, stinking, commie pinko (which probably explains why the bbc employed him on Children’s Hour). Much to the chagrin of many of his fellow folkies, Ives responded to the charges against him with a very firm ‘nah – not me guv’ and cooperated with the committee’s investigations. This created a bitter rift between Ives and his contemporaries, with Pete Seager accusing him of betrayal to save his career. His singing career was a bit hit and miss after that, but his acting career was a tremendous success.
Andy Williams was another of my Mum and Dad’s favourites and no consideration of Christmas hits could possibly exclude his 1963 hit, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Ditto Johnny Mathis (with Winter Wonderland and Sleigh Ride) whose Merry Christmas album (first released in 1958) went on to become one of the biggest-selling Christmas albums of the 1960s. However, despite the best efforts of my parents, I think the first Christmas single that resonated with me was The Beach Boys’ Little Saint Nick (1963) and The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album (1964) on which it features.
Christmas novelty songs were also quite popular in the UK – much more so than the US – and the Beatles’ Christmas flexi-discs were a good example of this. These recordings were odd beasts. They were special recordings, sent to out members of the Beatles fan club from 1963 to 1969, and were printed on very flimsy (and indeed very floppy) vinyl. They usually featured an irreverent mix of festive messages, seasonal songs, skits, sketches and sundry Scouse shenanigans. They were never generally released nor sold in stores, so they never actually charted; but they were hugely popular with the punters and a complete set of Fab Four floppies could fetch serious money in the memorabilia market. The original recordings were eventually compiled into a regular vinyl album called From Them to You, which was released at the start of the 1970s. I believe I may still have a second-hand copy of that album somewhere. I played it once and have never felt the slightest urge to play it again. Beatle-mania now seems like a very strange and remote anthropological phenomenon.
Anyway, it’s to the 1970s (and indeed the 1980s) to which we shall next turn our festive Friday attention. However, these are matters for another missive. So for now, dear Puffins, I think that’s probably quite enough of my random Christmas ramblings for one evening. So I shall bid TTFN to one and all. May your pillows be tasty, your gardens inclined and your puddles well jumped.
Goodnight, and may your frog go with you – Not ‘arf!
Featured Image: Christmas at the Pabst Mansion by Michael Barera via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
© Ivory Cutlery 2025
