‘Peace, hope, fun and loss’: Russ Litten’s Top Ten Christmas Songs

*The Crow’s Nest*, a music column by Russ Litten

***My Top Ten Christmas songs***

In our house, Christmas Day meant a new LP under the tree and Top Of The Pops on the box.

Every holiday season since has been soundtracked by an ever-evolving playlist of timeless standards, childhood favourites and the occasional fresh festive discovery.

So what makes a great Christmas song? For me, Yuletide tunes hit hardest when they evoke a memory of a cherished time, place or loved one.

It’s the only time of year when I allow myself a self-indulgent slug from the flask of sentimentality, so a good Christmas song needs to make me feel warm and wistful, carry with it a certain yearning, bittersweet nostalgia.

I’m not interested in anything cutting edge, radical or cool at Christmas. As our side of the globe turns its face to the bleak black of winter, I crave a musical comfort blanket.

So here’s my current personal Top Ten, with attendant notes and memories.

10. The Housemartins – Caravan of Love

As soon as I hear the first bars of this acapella call to arms, I am transported back to a packed and sweaty Admiral Hawke in Hessle Square in 1986, eighteen years old and full of Malibu and Coke. Very nearly the Christmas Number One, this cover of the Isley-Jasper-Isley gospel classic became, for a short while, the nation’s alternative Christmas Carol, and can still be heard to this day, bellowed outside city centre pub windows at closing time.

9. Bing Crosby and David Bowie – Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth

One of the oddest duets in pop history – the arty young space cadet and the ageing mainstream crooner – yet, perhaps because of that, one of the most strangely touching. Recorded for Crosby’s 1977 TV Christmas show, the song works as a kind of arms-length waltz between the old and the new – Bing as the Ghost of Christmas Past, pa-rup-a-pumpumming away sotto voce as Bowie does his plaintive Anthony Newley impression, before past and present unite in a shared dream of enduring peace for all future generations. It shouldn’t really work, but it does, magnificently. And Bing’s pale blue Slazenger cardigan is classic Christmas casual wear. Side note – Bing Crosby once called in at the Green Dragon in Welton for a pint. Or so legend has it.

8. Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas

The first long-playing record I ever got as a Christmas present was Elvis’ Christmas Album. I was about seven or eight. I remember sitting beneath the tree on Christmas Eve and tearing a corner off the wrapping paper to peek at the red and white lettering beneath. I played it to death all the next day, especially the opening track Blue Christmas, a rolling, rollicking lament to lost Christmas love complete with a classic Presley vocal performance, mournful bluesy backing whoops from The Jordanaires and visions of blue snowflakes falling. The only snowflakes falling in our house were bits of plaster from the ceiling as I cranked the King up to ten, again and again.

7. Greg Lake – I Believe in Father Christmas

I chanced upon this in the early hours of the morning one time when I couldn’t sleep and turned the radio on for company. It was pitch black outside and starting to snow. The freezing solitude of the wee small hours lent this piece of orchestral chocolate box pomp an odd and poignant fragility. A tale of lost childhood innocence and eyes full of tinsel and fire. I Believe In Father Christmas flies the flag for truth and beauty in the face of rampant consumerism. Excellent accompanying video of Greg in a desert with some camels.

6. Bruce Springsteen – Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town

The Boss would make an ideal Santa Claus – avuncular, open-hearted, possessed of a gleeful sense of fun. There are no mournful laments here, just out and out pre-match excitement. ‘Have you been good, Clarence?’ Bruce asks his six-foot-plus saxophonist before leading the greatest bar band in the world into a full-on festive sleigh bells and whistles version of the Ronettes’ classic. Speaking of whom…

5. The Ronettes – Frosty the Snowman

The entire album this is lifted from – A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector – is one long glorious sing-a-long, every track shimmering with Spector’s trademark orchestral overload. This particular track was a hit with my kids when they were little, still fizzing with the absolute magic of Christmas. The Ronettes continue to signal the start of Christmas proper round our way. Snare drums crash, bells jingle-jangle, a string section sways like a melting snowman and a host of heavenly angels from Washington Heights, Manhattan, appear from up on high, the best pop choir ever. Let the kitchen dancing commence.

4. Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody

Only a stone-hearted cynic could leave this one out. Nothing quite captures the unabashed beery bonhomie of a festive get-together than this glittery foot stomper. It also works as a handy aural calendar, a kind of Yuletide cockerel call. It’s not Christmas until Noddy Holder says so. I found myself sat next to the great man at a radio station Christmas party once. He told me they’d recorded Merry Christmas Everybody one summer in the middle of a heatwave. I asked him if he ever got sick of singing it. He looked at me like I was daft. ‘Nah’, he said, ‘It’s only once a year, innit?’

3. The Pretenders – 2000 Miles

Almost unbearable to listen to on a personal level, which speaks to the power of music when bound to specific memory. This is a song about missing someone at that time of the year when you need them the most. Chrissie Hynde’s heartbroken sob of a voice was built for such moments. The song fades in and out like a snowdrift and the guitars sound like icicles falling in slow motion.

2. The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl – Fairytale of New York

This, of course, has got the lot – romance, tragedy, joy, cinematic characters, a gripping plot / backstory, and a soaring tune to boot. Fairytale of New York sounds like it’s always been with us, a folk song for the underdog from a thousand years ago, timeless as Christmas itself. And, unlike many Christmas tunes, repetition has not dimmed its glorious star. Shane MacGowan is a genius and this is probably the best Christmas song ever, all things considered, but it’s not my personal Number One. [Editor’s note: this article was written before MacGowan’s death last month].

1. John Lennon and Yoko Ono – Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Every year, without fail I will catch the opening of this song emerge from a radio or in a shop or from a passing car, and the stark simplicity of it will stop me dead in my tracks. Lennon sounds like a beseeching ghost clanging a wake-up bell. His critics often accuse him of naivety. It’s one of the things I like most about his post-Beatles output. John Lennon produced much of his best work when he looked at the world like a child and spoke simple truths. War Is Over, If You Want It remains an open-hearted reminder that peace is something still worth raising your voice for. Christmas should be a time when you suspend disbelief and let the light flood in. This song opens up a three-and-a-half-minute portal into another possible world, where weary cynicism is invited to take a well-earned rest and we dare to dream of something better.

So that’s my Christmas Top Ten, for this year at least. I hope you have a peaceful Christmas and a lively New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one.

‘Peace, hope, fun and loss’: Russ Litten’s Top Ten Christmas Songs

The Crow’s Nest, a music column by Russ Litten

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