Pop quiz!

Obviously the answer is Mud, but either because the titles are similar or because they both sound like rock’n’roll songs, people often think the answer is Elvis, who of course famously sang today’s pick, Blue Christmas, but who had nothing to do with Lonely This Christmas, which was first a hit in 1974 but which I know best from its use in the second best Christmas film of all*, Bernard And The Genie.

But here’s a true fact! Neither song dates from the rock’n’roll era, because Blue Christmas was written by Billy Hayes way back in the nineteen forties, before rock music or quiffs or teenagers existed, and was first recorded by the marvellously-named Doye O’Dell in 1948. So today’s song is another cheat, because it’s not a cover; it’s the original of a much better known later version.

You will note if you look closely that this video has nothing to do with the song it accompanies, apart from (hopefully) featuring some of the same personnel. I suggest you don’t look closely, if that is likely to upset you.

*The best Christmas film of all, as I am pretty sure I explain here at least once a year, is 大停電の夜に or Daiteiden no yoru ni or Until The Lights Come Back, which still has never had a release outside of Asia and so you will still need to either come to my house to watch it, OR go to Indy’s house because he still has one of my spare copies (I don’t think he’s watched it, it took him a year to watch a ten-minute sketch show that I enthusiastically recommended multiple times AND sent him a link to).