Today is the day all my school friends come for a Christmas party (these days with various hangers-on), and you join me as I’m tasting the mulled wine (needs more sugar) and checking the sausage rolls (five more minutes). So of course it has to be this song, which I associate with them more than anyone else. I usually use the 1992 TOTP appearance where Kirsty edits out the contentious word, but in this even more wholesome version by Jimmy Fallon (sounding so extraordinarily like Shane MacGowan that I had to check) and Saoirse Ronan (sounding exactly like Saoirse Ronan) they get around it by leaving out that line altogether, which now I think about it is an even better idea, because although it’s a good song, I’m also kind of fine with it ending a bit sooner than it usually does.
Month: December 2022
Advent song for December 3: Santa Claus is Coming To Town
I don’t know if you can talk about different recordings of popular classics as ‘cover versions’, really, because they were written to be sung by multiple people and the earliest version is always one you’ve never heard by someone with a name like Freddy Dangle And His Jingle Jangles. But I have decided that in such cases it’s acceptable to offer a recording that isn’t the most famous. I don’t know why this isn’t the most famous version of this song, because it’s delightful and will, I cast-iron-promise-or-your-money-back guarantee, cheer you up and make your Saturday better.
Advent song for December 2: All I Want For Christmas Is You
CeeLo Green could sing almost anything and I’d like it, because he has the voice of an angel, but he had the Christmas Eve spot the year we had twenty four different versions of White Christmas (of which more to come), so this year I’m giving him a nice early slot. Do you know that both this and Last Christmas were once, before I knew better, among my least favourite Christmas songs? I don’t know what was wrong with me, but at least I grew out of it.
Advent Song for December 1: Last Christmas
Good crikey, it’s December. How did that happen? I am pretty sure it’s only just been August. No matter, because this year’s musical advent calendar is smoking hot and READY TO GO. You needn’t panic about being Whamageddoned, partly because Whamagddon is a terrible idea, what with making you have to avoid the nearly-best Christmas song of all* for nearly all of Christmas, and partly because this year’s theme is the biggest Christmas songs of all time, performed by someone other than the original artist, and cover versions don’t count in the official rules of Whamageddon, as I understand them.
(‘Biggest’ in this case is a sort of squinting hybrid of UK chart sales, US chart sales and Very Famous Songs Which Somehow Aren’t On Either List.)
And if that makes your heart sink because cover versions are never as good as the original, don’t worry! These ones are. We begin with an artist who is related to me, and who coincidentally has just racked up an exceptionally good year on Spotify, and if you listen to this you will see why.
*Obviously Mistletoe and Wine is #1 and all other songs are #2 or lower.
Glad All Over 