SLADE – “Merry Xmas Everybody”
I had thought I might have to write about it in that tiny sliver of summer we had this year, but turns out I come to it at the end of September – a proper September, as Robin Carmody put it on his blog: crispness in the air, conkers on the ground and a sense of anticipation. “Back to school weather”, I always think of it as, but when I was small there was something else too – the week when the weather turned was the first time I’d allow myself to think about Christmas. And once I realised that, the first thought of Christmas became a new Christmas tradition for me – it being a time unusually welcoming to traditions.
This was the big difference between Christmas and Birthdays, the two poles of the year as a kid. On my birthday I wanted surprises – at Christmas, even when I was only old enough to remember a handful, I wanted anything but. This urge for the familiar wasn’t exactly unique to me – it’s what the secular Christmas industry is based on, and it’s the coin of almost every hit Christmas song; a parade of comforting festive images. I can really sympathise with people who had miserable Christmasses as a child and dislike the season now – the collective will to enjoy it, and to enjoy it in particular ways, must be stifling.
But once you’re in the collective, Christmas is generous and flexible – it’s as much about the family eccentricities, the little personal traditions, as Nat King Cole style fantasias. Chestnuts roasting – well, fine, but Dad trying to light all the candles with one match, and telling the same cracker joke every year: now that’s Christmas. And this is the warm genius of Slade’s song, now as unshiftable a feature of the British Christmastime as cake and tinsel. This is a boozy, raucous family Christmas, unashamedly modern but in no way cynical.
You could make a case that “Merry Xmas” is Slade emasculating themselves – it bounces feistily along but there’s none of the venom, threat or even arrogance that they’d brought to glam rock. Its most famous, joyous moment – Noddy’s excited bellow just before the end – makes me remember it as a louder and less gentle record than it actually is. But that’s okay – it’s a generous, welcoming song for what ought to be a generous time.
9
It all makes sense now…
(a few years later we were on holiday in Blackpool, and therefore within the Granada TV catchment area, so were able to catch So It Goes. The first item on the first episode I remember watching was Mott – without the Hoople or Hunter – doing “Shouting And Pointing” with my dad shouting and pointing at the screen: “for fuck’s sake is that the best you can do?” We caught the Pistols one as well. My dad reckoned they were like Gong trying to be the Sweet)
Yes, the D.H.Lawrence poem was indeed on the back sleeve of Mott – it was something about wanting to stage a revolution for fun, and I even ended up borrowing a book of DHL poetry from Doncaster library on the strength of it. So, um, perhaps you have a point!
(The same sleeve carried the Mott fan club address, c/o one Kris “ZigZag” Needs, who presumably had taken over from Benazir Bhutto by that stage, or was it t’other way round?)
No you’re right, it was Benazir and then Kris.
And a quick nod to the massive glam hit of 1973 that never was but should have been: “Sebastian” by Cockney Rebel, number one everywhere else in Europe, number bubbling under here.
Also, the best contemporary Slade ripoff was “Kick Your Boots Off” by a group calling themselves Sisters – it appears on the Velvet Tinmine compilation and it’s a bit like Bernie Clifton on Seaside Special (or a young Redcoated Barrymore?) trying to do Slade. “But we’re gonna keep it clean!” Aw, bless!
What’s this about Benazir Bhutto?
Actually I’m totally wrong; Kris edited the Mott fanzine and crazy teenage Mott fan Benazir took over.
was BB just a a.n.other MtH fan or the actual official addressee of all fan club mail?
(i am honestly staggered by this tidbit of info — i never heard it before, possibly bcz as a longtime long-ago zigzag reader i developed severe needs allergy so did not choose to read his book)
also is there any evidence for this story BESIDES k.needs?
Yes, I think that BB herself has confirmed it, but would struggle to give you a source; it’s one of those little nuggets that re-surfaces from time to time. I didn’t know about the fanzine – was this the “Sea Divers” that the Mott sleeve mentions? (Working from possibly addled memory here.)
Yep.
(nb: direct Mott/PiL link – “‘ullo” at the beginning of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” -> “‘ullo” at the beginning of “Public Image”)
i’m being perverse i expect but i am much more interested in mining a pil/slade lineage!
I’m enjoying the Mott talk! I seem to remember reading long ago that Queen supported Mott, and I’ve often thought that some of the more stagey Mott numbers (Violence, Crash St Kids, Stiff Upper Lip) might have been the first blueprints of what would eventually blossom as Bo Rap.
The semi-unruly violin links “Coz I Luv You” to “Flowers Of Romance.”
those in the know feel free to tell me if this is obvious / totally wrong!
Nice theory, but I dunno that I buy it, byebyepride. The episodic theatricality of Bo Rap can at least be traced back to “March of the Black Queen” on Queen II, which pre-dates the Mott tour in early 74.
This is my favourite Slade track and my favourite Christmas track: zero mention of organised religion, hitherto mythical figures derobed to reveal it’s actually someone’s dad in a big red suit (ha and not your own!), and above all a good tune. It’s all about the bassline, going up and down the stairs like it’s forgotten to pick something up then once it’s returned it can’t remember why but remembers something else it needed, and so on.
And there’s NO FVCKING SLEIGH BELLS.
Uncle Noddy’s annual pension and surely the ultimate Xmas chart-topper, although I have already aired a hankering for The Wombles, which, as regular contributors will recall, cost me a rather unexpected and uncharacteristic mauling from one of you when I coupled this with my extreme dislike of another much more recent yuletide staple. Those ecology-loving aardvarks fell just short of the top, in fact, whereas Slade gloriously flew straight in at the top in mid December and didn’t budge until February was well in sight, an incredible stat for a seasonal hit.
The song is so happy and good natured, it’s impossible not to like it. The lyric throughout is a charming family overview of the festive season and it bounces along up to it’s delirious conclusion when Noddy screams out at the top of his lungs a reminder of what it’s all about. A heart-warming offering. Eternally may it remain included amongst our annual Christmas fare.
thanks mike! I am totally unschooled in Queen, so had no idea.
Can’t offer a Slade-PiL link, but I can do you a Slade-Devo: compare and contrast the opening of “Do We Still Do It” (from Old New Borrowed & Blue, repeated in the middle and at the end) with the main descending riff in “Jocko Homo”.
I don’t care what anyone says, whether it’s the local supermarket stocking christmas mince pies in September with a use by date of a week! Or the ads on the telly trying to get you to buy stuff 3 months in advance.
When you have the radio on at work all day, in mid-december they can play that bloody “Stop the Cavalry” record as long as they want…
But it’s not Christmas until they play Slade!!!
The regular “Nod-slot” on Stuart Maconie’s R2 show was a gem last night – Noddy was debunking inaccurate information on his Wikipedia entry (e.g that he’d made a record with Anna Ford), and they looked again 20 minutes later to find it had been corrected complete with a reference to the show! Maybe someone should tell him about this site sometime.
The giveaway was that the alleged duet – a cover of Shakin’ Stevens’ “You Drive Me Crazy” peaked at #37 in 1983 when any fule kno that only seven singles achieved that peak in that year and these were as follows:
Wah! – Hope (I Wish You’d Believe Me) (this SHOULD have been number one for 98 weeks, especially the full-length 12″ version with acoustic “Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory” prelude, and will be a number one for Robbie if he’s got enough sense to cover it)
Chill Fac-Torr – Twist (Round ‘N’ Round) (Mike A is hating me already for reminding him of this)
Toto – I Won’t Hold You Back (exquisite and the foundation of a future number one)
Level 42 – Micro-Kid (Adornoite jazz-funkers identify contemporary isolationist consumerist entrapment A GENERATION AHEAD OF THEIR TIME)
AC/DC – Guns For Hire (big 1973 shoutout for Geordie btw, esp. “All Because Of You” with scary sped-up vocal intro)
Hot Chocolate – Tears On The Telephone (rather boring)
Jingle Belles – Christmas Spectre (guess)
OK Marcello, you’re scaring me now. :-)
I hated that bloody Chill Fac-Torr single, as championed by dear old Dale “Godfather of Hip Hop” Winton on his Monday night Soul Show at Radio Trent.
“will be a number one for Robbie if he’s got enough sense to cover it)”
He should use it as the follow-up to his number one achieved by covering Never Loved As A Child from the 1998/2000 Wah! elpee though.
It’s a disgrace when a great band’s (because a great band they were) greatest ever moment is a seasonal hit that you just don’t put on unless the calendar shows December.
Like with Wham! I have the same problem with Slade. This is their pinnacle. This is the one song where they got everything right. Sure, they were very close on several songs that would be released the following couple of years (none of them hitting UK #1), but they were never as great as this.
Surely, the lyrics are Christmasy enough and sort of only annoys you because it means this song may only be played at that particular time of year. But the rest is oh so perfect, with a great tune, there greatest ever chorus, and one of the best middle-eights ever written The harmonies at the end of the chorus were even remiscent of The Beatles at their best.
One of my all-time-favourite Christmas songs, and surely the best thing Slade ever did.
For those of us born after 1973 (in my case, fifteen years after), this song seems to have been around since the beginning of time. It always made me wonder – before this and Wizzard came out, what *did* people dance to at Christmas parties? Slow-waltz to ‘White Christmas’?
It contributes to my earliest musical memories anyway, as I remember it playing at my nursery school’s Christmas party in 1993. Then I knew it simply as the song from the Andrex advert, with the puppy running down the hill.
Haven’t got tired of this *just* yet, but I think it’s gradually starting to be overtaken in the general media by previously ‘underrated’ songs by The Pogues and Mariah Carey, in the last few years they’ve been getting more airplay. Always secretly preferred Wizzard, anyway.
#50 I think you are right about Slade (and Wizzard) being the beginning of time of Christmas records. There are probably three main reasons for that – first, older records have slipped off the edge of time (it will also certainly happen one day to Slade/Wizzard); second, Slade/Wizzard have appeared frequently on Christmas Top of the Pops over the years and have thus been heavily promoted over and over; and, third, they appeared in colour on TV (unlike the black and white of the 50s and most of the 60s) in “Christmassy” costumes, which, like Santa himself, don’t seem to date.
However, there have been Christmas-oriented records ever since these charts began in 1952. Here are just a few from the early years.
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – Jimmy Boyd (1952)
Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt (1953) (much better than the Kylie Minogue version and I don’t think it would have been permitted at a nursery school’s Christmas party!)
Let’s have another Party – Winifred Atwell (1954) (Christmas number one, although not specifically about Christmas, more about parties)
Christmas Alphabet – Dickie Valentine (1955) (Christmas number one)
Mary’s Boy Child – Harry Belafonte (1956) (Christmas number one)
Rockin Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee (1958)
The only one of these 1950s numbers suitable for dancing at children’s Christmas parties in a Slade/Wizzard kind of way is the Brenda Lee, although the Winifred Atwell provides a better knees-up than any of them.
Billy Hicks @ 50
Us wrinklies had lots of things to dance to, they just weren’t particularly Christmassy even at Christmas parties. Some of them we’ve dealt with; an awful lot were big big big but didn’t hit the top spot.. Tom has pointed out that very few Beatles tracks were particularly danceable. The Stones, on the other hand, could be relied upon to keep a good steady dance rhythm. At sixth-form parties Brown Sugar always went down well, I recall, and Stay With Me by the Faces. There was any amount of Motown and derivatives. Towards the end of the evening the smooching set in. Nobody much cared if it was Carole King or Leonard Cohen, they were too busy shuffling around with lips glued together.
Though on the whole dancing wasn’t especially high on the agenda at the sort of parties I went to.
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned Phil Spector’s ‘A Christmas Gift for You’ album from 1963. The Beach Boys released a Christmas album in 1964 and Wikipedia lists 40 Christmas albums from the 1960s alone.
Like Rosie I don’t remember Christmassy songs being played at parties (in the 1970s in my case) – they always seemed to finish with ‘Nights in white satin’ IIRC – with ‘Hi ho Silver Lining’ used as a floor clearer at the end.
penis
@54
pee po belly bum drawers
Re 50/51: Channel 5 are doing an archive show this year which will apparently go back as far as (gasp) David Whitfield’s Santo Natale, including members of DW’s Appreciation Society and their plans for a statue of the rubbery-voiced one in Hull. So maybe the boundaries are being redrawn and MXE is no longer the beginning of the beginning for xmas pop.
Dickie V! Your time will come again!
“Dad trying to light all the candles with one match” – that’s more of a birthday party scenario, surely? “Dad trying to set light to,and then trying to extinguish, the Xmas pudding” is more on the mark. And did anyone have those rather underwhelming “indoor fireworks?”
it was nice to here santo natale sang on channel 5s britains favourite christmas songs on christmas day channel 5 at 10pm.
Hmmm, I’m watching it now – “Poirot” will have to be Sky-plussed I think. “Hey Mr Christmas” by the ‘Waddy sold 152,000 copies, yet only made number 13, sharing Top 20 space with Mud, the Rubettes and G Glitter.
And talking of GG, there was an ‘airbrush’ moment on Smooth last night – his 1984 hit “Another Rock’n'Roll Christmas” was referred to by name only, no mention of the artist. Will we be seeing it tonight I wonder?