Secular Christmas Music

KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
edited November 2024 in Heaven
For stuff that isn't choirs or carols.

I'm a fan of Sabaton's Christmas Truce*. I also like Jethro Tull's Christmas Song, loosely based on Once in Royal.

I've got an Open Mike in December so I'm working on acoustic versions of Tull's Ring out Solstice Bells and Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody - I will not attempt to replicate Noddy Holder's scream of "It's Christmas" because only he can do that. I'm sceptical about being able to do a reasonable acoustic version of the Sabaton but might explore the possibility.

What are other folks' likings in this area? You can confess to Mariah Carey if you need to. No-one will judge you.

*Please find it on the streaming platform of your choice and try to get it to Christmas No. 1 where it so ought to be.
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Comments

  • Call me an old softie but I really do like Wham's Last Christmas, made more poignant by the knowledge that George Michael died on Christmas Day.

    Other than that? Eartha Kitt singing Santa Baby.
  • Grandma got run over by a reindeer for all the wrong reasons
    The nat king Cole festive album for all the right ones (inheriting the lp from my Grandma (no reindeer incidents) would be one)
  • Santa baby is ace
  • I like "Driving home for Christmas" and "Stop the Cavalry"
  • Sparrow wrote: »
    I like "Driving home for Christmas" and "Stop the Cavalry"

    Stop the Cavalry was one of the first singles I ever bought.
  • I always loved Santa Baby - and more so when it was included in the Christmas Concert by a choir I used to sing with, quite a few years ago now.
  • Other than that? Eartha Kitt singing Santa Baby.
    To be honest, there’s not a lot of popular Christmas music I like, but I do love Eartha Kitt singing “Santa Baby.” (And she’s the only person I want to hear sing it.) And I admitted on the “Carols” thread to my love of Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family.”


  • I mentioned it in the carol thread, but I have a soft spot for "Life in a Northern Town" by Dream Academy.

    I'll think about this more.
  • I'll also confess that I always enjoy hearing "It's a Marshmallow World," but it has to be Darlene Love as arranged by Phil Spector. I mean, take a dose of the Wall of Sound whenever you can, right?
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    I rather like David Essex singing A Winter's Tale.
  • Twangist wrote: »
    Grandma got run over by a reindeer for all the wrong reasons

    You are not alone!

  • Is Mariah Carey’s song that shall not be named as inescapable in your countries as it is in the US?

    Mariah herself even releases a Halloween horror themed “It’s Time!” video every year to announce that as of November 1, she has been thawed from her icy prison to torment retail workers who will hear nothing else for two months.
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    edited November 2024
    I’m British and lived through the 80s. So I inherited the 70s stuff and then layered everything since onto it. I do believ none of it should be heard before December 1st each year, but within the December window I love basically all of it.

    Slade obviously. I also like Wizzard’s effort. Tull has been mentioned.

    Greg Lake has hands down the best Christmas song (and video).

    Then all of Shakin’ Stevens, Jona Lewis, Elton John, Paul Macartney.

    John and Yoko’s effort was dross.

    The nearest to ‘modern classic’ British Christmas songs are the Darkness and (genuinely) Elton John and Ed Sheeran from the COVID Christmas of 2020.

    Nomination for should-be-a-classic-but-isn’t:

    Barclay James Harvest - The Ballad of Denshaw Mill - beautiful, sad World War One Christmas myth from Saddleworth Moor. It’s on YouTube
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I like:

    Do they know it's Christmas? (sorry about that; I was given the 12-inch single as a Christmas present from my brother when it was released in 1984). Now they're marking 40 years, and I'm feeling old.

    They said there'd be snow at Christmas

    Stop the Cavalry

    Mull of Kintyre (again, sorry about that). I don't really know why I like it, because in most other circumstances I don't like bagpipes.

    I don't like:

    Most American ones, especially anything by Bing Crosby. This is partly due to having spent one pre-Christmas season working in a shopping centre in Canada and being subjected to the most awful load of tosh for periods of seven hours at a time.
  • I love the lesser-known ones such as Thea Gilmore's "That'll Be Christmas" and Chris Squire /Alan White's "Run With The Fox" (which includes an intro on recorder based on the carol 'On Christmas Night All Christians Sing'). Basically anything Radio 2 tends to play that isn't the usual SladeWizzardWhamMariah which have all been played to death.

    Even the blessed 'Fairytale of New York' becomes overplayed eventually, though I performed it with a colleague at a work Christmas do to great acclaim. We held up a picture of a packet of meatballs and a donkey instead of singing the more controversial lyrics!

    My personal listening has to include

    Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band - Carols and Capers (they manage the folky trick of singing about Jesus, cows, boar's heads and beer with equal joy and fervour).

    The King's Singers - A Little Christmas Music (we once staged a dance to 'Patapan and Farandole' from this album which was so joyful, I'd love to do it again if we had the right people).

    A Christmas Survival Guide - this is a musical revue with a cynical edge, performed by Broadway stars. Includes a less than family-friendly take on 'Sleigh Ride'.

    A Broadway Christmas - lesser known songs such as 'Be A Santa' and 'The Christmas Child' from obscure shows.
  • Tom Lehrer's Christmas Carol is splendid, helped by the fact that I can sing along to far more of it than I can of The Elements!
  • Has anyone here heard The Pan-American Nutcracker Suite?

    I also enjoy a number of Big Band (Swing) versions of the Nutcracker. Here is Les Brown and His Band Of Renown's.

    Here's The Brian Setzer Orchestra's.
  • I lie some very silly ones, like Dominick the Donkey, Alvan and the Chipmunks singing their Christmas song, whatever it's called, and I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.
  • Hurrah for the darkness and maddy prior
  • Back in the mid 60s I had a copy of Elvis's Christmas Album. It included carols, secular songs and Gospel songs. My favourite was Blue Christmas.
  • I also like "santa bring my baby back" on the elvis front.
  • What is this Wizzard song of which you speak?
  • I love Maddy Prior’s album, @Gill H!
  • I also like "santa bring my baby back" on the elvis front.
  • ChastMastr wrote: »
    What is this Wizzard song of which you speak?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IJPc7esgvsA
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    edited November 2024
    In the 70s and 80s Britain raised naff-secular-Christmas-songs to an art form. Sheer unadulterated silliness, usually done by serious musicians.

    Over the years the odd one or two have joined the canon, but really 1970-88 is the majority, and totally mainstream inescapable in shops and on the radio every year, even for today’s children. It’s an organic British new Christmas thing of the last 50 years. Much more likely to hear Slade or Wizzard than Bing Crosby in my experience. He’s inescapable too, but you’ll hear them or Greg Lake 5x for every once you hear him
  • Much more likely to hear Slade or Wizzard than Bing Crosby in my experience. He’s inescapable too, but you’ll hear them or Greg Lake 5x for every once you hear him

    God be praised.

    Oh, turns out that Christmas Truce on solo acoustic doesn’t really work too well.
  • What’s the Greg Lake song called?
  • I Believe in Father Christmas

    https://youtu.be/yfY4b1NszpY?si=j9FSjUyLqSKdbAO7

    I have a love-hate relationship with it. On the plus side, it sounds great (partly due to pinching a wonderful tune from Prokofiev).

    On the minus side, the lyrics basically equate to 'Santa isn't real so therefore neither is God, if you're naive enough to still believe then good for you but life sucks, enjoy!'

    The last line, "The Christmas we get we deserve" particularly gets on my nerves. Most people deserve a far better Christmas than they actually get.

    If I want a downbeat Christmas song, I usually stick with 'Fairytale of New York' which I think pulls off that mixture of misery and hopefulness much more successfully.

    Or even Del Amitri's 'Nothing Ever Happens' for some seasonal doom and gloom.

    https://youtu.be/TxbIU0X-lCI?si=tTdIj0vSBCfdPFw9
  • Ah, I'd heard it before, but didn't know who it was by, nor that Greg Lake was the Lake of ELP.

    Interestingly, U2 covered it and changed a couple of critical words. <3

    https://talku2.com/behind-song-believe-father-christmas/#:~:text=For Sinfeld, the song was,we get, we deserve.”
  • Another one for Greg Lake and for Maddy Prior.
    We’re going to see her in Abergavenny in December - sadly, it’s their farewell tour 😥 but she must be over 70 so travelling long distances can’t be so much fun.
  • I find most of the "traditional' naff-but-serious Christmas songs land a bit flat (in some cases literally sounding slightly flat, or obviously at the end of the singers vocal range), besides if there must be doleful harmonies redolent of rather gloomy weather I'll stick with Rutter. Or just relocate it to a different location and go with Vulfpeck, or Sharon Jones.
  • I can't help but think that we should have more splendidly silly things, like whoever decided to write the Rudolf song as a Gregorian chant in Latin.
  • Nicole mentioned Dominick the Donkey, which definitely comes under 'splendidly silly'. Not well known in the UK, but Hugal and I have been using it in Christmas performances for years now. Audiences seem to love it despite not knowing much Brooklyn Italian!

    We also like to use the version of Rudolph with audience responses (I think it's been used in The Simpsons but we learned it in Walt Disney World). Basically there are things for the audience to shout back after each line. Very silly indeed!

  • How could I forget Frank Kelly's wonderful Irish take on 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'?

    https://youtu.be/E8OPuwa783g?si=6gLYewVZ_VaeG0jo

    He was perhaps best known as the sweary Father Jack in 'Father Ted' but this is a very different character by the name of Gobnait O'Lunacy.

    And it must be time soon for 'Santa's a Scotsman'.

    https://youtu.be/vkpOfHW75ck?si=iVVUajoA-VC_xdSm
  • The one I hate with a deep abiding passion is the Little Drummer Boy. I think I've ranted about that before, but to repeat:

    Here is poor Mary. Heavily pregnant, she has been bumped about on a donkey all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Arriving at Bethlehem, she goes into labour. With nowhere to stay, they finally find refuge in a stable. She gives birth, all on her own (can’t imagine Joseph would be much help!)

    So she gets herself cleaned up, gets the baby cleaned up, feeds him (presumably) and gets him off to sleep. Totally exhausted, she tries to rest herself. Then what happens?

    A choir of angels start singing! The baby wakes up. Mary tries to be gracious, thanks them. Eventually they leave. Mary gets the baby back to sleep.

    A bunch of shepherds arrive, claiming they have been told to come and look at the baby. Baby wakes up. Mary tries to be gracious, welcomes them, shows them the baby, they leave. Mary gets the baby back to sleep.

    Then another bunch of complete strangers arrive, claiming they have followed a star a long way to see the baby. Baby wakes up. Mary tries to be gracious, welcomes them, shows them the baby, they leave. Mary gets the baby back to sleep.

    And then … a snotty little kid arrives and starts BANGING A DRUM ….
  • Fairytale of New York ???? I can't be doing with drunken dirges.

    I will stick with Cliff !!!
  • I wouldn't mind if they played 'Saviour's Day' more often - it's far superior to the glurge that is 'Mistletoe and Wine'. Or best of all, Chris Eaton's arrangement of 'O Little Town'.

    It does make me smile that in the US, the version of 'Saviour's Day' which Sheila Walsh released omitted the 'raise up your glasses and drink to the King' part. Obviously too decadent for them...
  • Sparrow wrote: »
    The one I hate with a deep abiding passion is the Little Drummer Boy. I think I've ranted about that before, but to repeat:

    Time for an early outing for this old groaner !

  • Telford wrote: »
    Fairytale of New York ???? I can't be doing with drunken dirges.

    I will stick with Cliff !!!

    Whatever else FoNY may be, a dirge it isn't.
  • Gill H wrote: »
    I wouldn't mind if they played 'Saviour's Day' more often - it's far superior to the glurge that is 'Mistletoe and Wine'. Or best of all, Chris Eaton's arrangement of 'O Little Town'.

    It does make me smile that in the US, the version of 'Saviour's Day' which Sheila Walsh released omitted the 'raise up your glasses and drink to the King' part. Obviously too decadent for them...

    Did the UK release include it, I hope?
  • Gill H wrote: »
    Nicole mentioned Dominick the Donkey, which definitely comes under 'splendidly silly'. Not well known in the UK, but Hugal and I have been using it in Christmas performances for years now. Audiences seem to love it despite not knowing much Brooklyn Italian!

    We also like to use the version of Rudolph with audience responses (I think it's been used in The Simpsons but we learned it in Walt Disney World). Basically there are things for the audience to shout back after each line. Very silly indeed!

    Did you hear Dominick the Donkey at the Adventurers Club at WDW?

    https://youtu.be/yeMTyWZY3gU?si=oVK8Brlb-DAXc1Sm
  • Is the Rudolph response one the one with things like “had a shiny nose… Like a lightbulb!” Etc.? And was that also with the adventurers club or somewhere else?
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Fairytale of New York ???? I can't be doing with drunken dirges.

    I will stick with Cliff !!!

    Whatever else FoNY may be, a dirge it isn't.

    It's not just a dirge. It's a dirge mainly sung by a man who can't sing very well and who appears to be drunk.
  • SpikeSpike Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Sparrow wrote: »
    I like "Driving home for Christmas" and "Stop the Cavalry"

    Stop the Cavalry was one of the first singles I ever bought.

    Stop the Cavalry was never intended to be a Christmas song. It’s an anti war song that was originally released in the summer and got nowhere. Because it included the line about a soldier wanting to be home in time for Christmas, some record producer had the bright idea of adding some jolly sounding Christmas bells and re-released it in time for Christmas, so Hey Presto, Jona Lewie never had to work again
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I don't care how overplayed it becomes; I will never get tired of "Fairytale of New York." The first time I heard it wasn't even Christmas and I nearly drove off the road crying (listening to the tape in my car).

    I also don't like most glitzy American Christmas music, but I will make exceptions for "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas" because they are fundamentally sad songs about wanting to be with the people you love at Christmas, when you can't always be. Both are associated with the Second World War (their most famous recordings having been in 1943) which gives the idea of separation from the ones you love even more weight. I love a bit of pathos in my Christmas music.

    With the reference to war-related Christmas songs, does anyone know "Christmas in the Trenches"? Or is that just a Canadian thing?
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    edited November 2024
    For pathos, “We Need a Little Christmas” (from Mame) may also do, since the context is not at Christmastime, but right after Mame and friends/family have just found out that she’s lost her fortune in the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929.
  • ChastMastr wrote: »
    For pathos, “We Need a Little Christmas” (from Mame) may also do, since the context is not at Christmastime, but right after Mame and friends/family have just found out that she’s lost her fortune in the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929.
    It’s presumably early December, though. Remember that Patrick sings “But, Auntie Mame, it’s one week past Thanksgiving Day now.”


  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    For pathos, “We Need a Little Christmas” (from Mame) may also do, since the context is not at Christmastime, but right after Mame and friends/family have just found out that she’s lost her fortune in the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929.
    It’s presumably early December, though. Remember that Patrick sings “But, Auntie Mame, it’s one week past Thanksgiving Day now.”


    Oh that’s true! Hmm. Depending on the year of course. Ah, Nov 28 that year… my goodness, the thought of it being unusual to do all the Christmas stuff in early December! :open_mouth: (Apart from opening presents, dinner, etc.) And the musical was in the mid-60s!
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    My absolute favourite is a riot of sassy cheerfulness. A few years back the French composer/arranger Michel Legrand (best known for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) put together a whole Christmas album with various singers. It's seriously patchy - I have my reservations about Karl Lagerfeld singing the Little Drummer Boy - but his version of Jingle Bells (Vive le Vent in French) is glorious. The singer is Mika (he of Big Girls are Beautiful fame) putting in a superb upbeat performance, backed by Black gospel singers. If at the end you're not grinning and tapping your feet, check you have a pulse.
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