Only a week left until the big day, and only three more Advent Countdown episodes to come after this one. Time is marching on apace, and if you haven’t got the sprouts on yet you’d better get onto it quickly 🤣

As always, I’m giving you a mixed bag of tunes for today, and an ad from the vaults. Four of the tunes are old favourites and one is brand new – only released last Thursday. Let’s get started with one I’ve played several times before. I absolutely love this, just for being totally bonkers:

Must Be Santa was written in 1960 by Hal Moore and Bill Fredericks, and first released by Mitch Miller in November of that year, though I can’t find details of any chart placing for it. His version was included on his 1961 album Holiday Sing Along With Mitch, which topped the US albums chart. A cover version by Tommy Steele made #40 in the UK singles chart in November 1961. But perhaps the most unlikely thing is that Bob Dylan made a Christmas album: it was called Christmas In The Heart and was released in 2009, a mixture of carols and traditional favourites. This track featured on the album: the tune is based on a German drinking song, with a call and response treatment, and I think Bob did justice to that with this crazy video and the accordion band. It’s good to see him having so much fun, too. His royalties from the album have all been donated to charities that provide food programmes, especially at Christmas. The album reached #40 in the UK albums chart, and got to #23 in the main US albums chart, whilst also reaching #1 on Billboard’s Holiday and Folk listings, and #9 on their Rock albums chart.

Another old favourite making a regular return next:

2,000 Miles was released by The Pretenders in November 1983, and I’ve always liked it. In the UK it reached #15, while in the US it was the B-side to the band’s single of Middle Of The Road, which peaked at #19. It also appeared on their 1984 album Learning To Crawl, which was #11 in the UK and #5 in the US. Cover versions include Coldplay and Kylie Minogue but I much prefer the original, and I’ve never seen a Salvation Army uniform look that good on anyone else. I’ve pinched a bit of background to the song from Wikipedia for your edification and erudition: 

“While many people believe the song’s title and lyrics refer to two long-distance lovers who miss each other over the holidays, it was actually written for James Honeyman-Scott, the group’s original guitarist, who died the year before the song was released. It frequently reappears in the UK Charts around Christmas time staying in the charts for a few weeks over the Christmas period.” It currently stands at #76.

I promised you a new one, and here it is:

In an article about him in 2017 the Daily Telegraph described Steven Wilson as being “probably the most successful British artist you’ve never heard of.” He has been making records for nearly forty years, both as a solo act and in a multitude of equally unfamiliar bands: Porcupine Tree, anyone? No, I thought not. In that time he has enjoyed some chart success, both here in the UK and in several European countries, but I’m guessing that the Telegraph’s description is as accurate for you as it was for me until I found this song in my YouTube recommendations. His three most recent albums have reached #3 (once) and #4 (twice) in the UK, and have charted in six other European countries – one made #1 in Finland! He has even made a couple of dents in the US Album charts too. He has apparently developed a reputation for quirkiness in his songwriting, and this one is very much in that vein. He describes the beginnings of December Skies thus: “Challenged by a friend last week on why I’d never done a Christmas song, I protested it wasn’t really me, and besides I didn’t think I had it in me to write suitably Christmassy lyrics. “No problem”, he said, “we’ll get ChatGPT to do it for you!”, upon which he instructed the AI to generate Christmas lyrics in the style of Steven Wilson. Which it proceeded to do so. By the yard, in fact, I was shocked at how instantaneous and easy it was to guide it (“don’t actually mention Christmas” we said to it, “make it feel more lonely”…etc)” I think I can say with a fair degree of confidence that this is the first song I’ve ever played with lyrics written by AI, and the bots did a pretty good job! In keeping with the artificial intelligence theme, the visualiser for December Skies was generated using a purpose built AI system and the video is based on imagery drawn from some of his previous videos, which was then placed into 2D and 3D backdrops. The video has accumulated more than 129k views in five days: not bad for the most successful British artist you’ve never heard of.

I’m back on more familiar ground for today’s two remaining songs. Firstly, what for me is the best version of one of the most well known Christmas carols of them all:

Sadly, we lost Sinead O’Connor in July, and although it was out of season I included Silent Night in my tribute post to her. She sings it so beautifully and tenderly, with absolutely no diva tendencies getting in the way of a simple, but lovely, tune. The video is gorgeous, too. This was released as a non-album single in 1991, reaching #12 in Ireland and #60 in the UK. I think it deserved so much better. The carol itself dates back to 1818, when it was composed by Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, in Austria.

For today’s closing song, I’m giving you another of my long term favourites, which I have played before with this same video, simply because it is so very well done:

Chris De Burgh has been rather looked down on by ‘serious’ music lovers (e.g. me) since the utterly execrable Lady In Red, but there is no denying that some of his earlier stuff is very good. A Spaceman Came Travelling was originally released on his 1975 album Spanish Train And Other Stories, and was a #1 hit in his half-native Ireland. A re-recorded version was released in 1986 to cash in on the success of the aforementioned vomit-inducer, and reached #40 here, and he then made a third version of it in 2010, which is the one in this video. On its original release the song was deemed blasphemous and was banned in South Africa – but only on the vinyl album, as the cassette version was allowed to slip through. Weird, or what? This video was the winning entry in a competition, and became Chris’ official video for the song’s 2010 re-release: I think it’s rather lovely. 

That’s all the tunes for today, and all that remains is for me to share an ad with you. I’ve said a couple of times already that this year’s crop are, in my view, a poor bunch, so I’m going back a little for this one. Just the 50 years or so. This ad is the original of the song, which was then recorded in a fuller version both by The Hillside Singers and the New Seekers. The latter was a UK #1 and US #7, and I absolutely detested it. But big business had made a nice ad out of it, which I think still carries some meaning today – if you can forget the fizzy pop stuff that it is promoting:

I must be going soft in my old age! But there is an underlying universal message in there, if only those in positions of power could be persuaded to do something about it.

That’s all for today. I’ll see you again for Part Seven in a couple of days, so stay safe and well until then and enjoy your week.