Mike Oldfield | Take It Easy

Only six days until Christmas Day or, if you’re a guy, that means it is five days until you start your Christmas shopping (a little PSA for you there). Looking through my notes of songs I have played for this season in previous years there are many which I’m not going to be able to fit in this year, but there are still plenty of good ones to come. Today’s set of five is the one in which I play some of my favourites from those which have been UK chart hits, just to prove that I’m not entirely anti-pop charts.

It would have been a full set of five of those, had my favourite covers band not added another to their ever growing catalogue of Christmas songs a couple of days ago. So, of course, I just had to play it:

Somehow, to my ears every Christmas song seems a little better when First To Eleven have rocked it up. That was, of course, a cover of the opening track on The Beach Boys Christmas Album, which was released in November 1964 and peaked at #6 in the US albums chart. It’s a fun song, and F2E keep to its spirit. And it is another chance for me to remark on how cute Audra Miller is!

The remaining four for today are all, as I said, favourites of mine that made the UK Singles charts. The first is one which is perhaps seasonal, rather than Christmassy, though as the Winter Solstice is just two days away it seems right to play it today:

Jethro Tull have long been a favourite band for me. Ring Out Solstice Bells dates back to the period when just about every band was aiming for chart success with a Christmas song. Some were better than others, this being evidence of one of the better ones. This is described as a promotional video for the BBC, and I’m pretty sure it was shown on their Top Of The Pops show back then. It was released in November 1976 as the lead single on an EP containing four tracks, and reached the dizzy heights of #28 here. It also got to #78 on being re-released as part of another EP in 2004. The track was also included on the Songs From The Wood album, which was released in February 1977, reaching #13 in the UK and #8 in the US. A re-recorded version later appeared on The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, which was released in September 2003 and made #73 in the UK Albums chart.

I have played this next one several times before. It is also from that heyday of UK Christmas singles:

Mike Oldfield released his version of In Dulce Jubilo as a single in 1975: an instrumental version of a traditional carol, played in his own unique fashion. It spent the two weeks before Christmas at #22, went up to #21 the week of the New Year, and then rocketed up to #4 in early January, a position it also held for two weeks. Weird, eh? It is a typically quirky take on the tune, and I’ve always liked it – I’m a big fan of his, which helps.

I last played this next one two years ago. It is a much more recent hit from another of my favourite bands, with a fairly understated video, by their standards:

Of course it’s cheesy, with a fairly predictable end, but that makes it just right for Christmas! The Darkness released Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) in December 2003: it reached #2 in the UK, having been the odds-on bookmakers’ favourite to be the Christmas #1 that year: it was beaten by the Gary Jules cover of Mad World which, though not a Christmas song, was very good, and was probably the one that restarted the trend for slowed down cover versions which have since graced zillions of adverts. This track also reached the top ten in Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands, but not in the US though: apart from two earlier singles, their chart success there has been limited to lower level placings for their albums. I still enjoy this one now, though, even if it isn’t filled with the excesses of some of their other videos! Some more information is available on Wikipedia: “The school choir that provide backing vocals, which can be heard on the song and seen in the video, are from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College school, in New Cross, London, which Justin and Dan Hawkins’ mother once attended. Following the humour and tone of the Darkness’s other work, the song also includes a strong level of parody, most notably the double meaning of the line ‘Bells End’ (bellend) and ‘Ring in peace’ (ringpiece).” Justin later admitted in an interview to being pleased at having got ‘bellend’ and ‘ringpiece’ into a Christmas song without getting banned. The girl in the bauble is Justin’s then-girlfriend and the Darkness’s manager, Sue Whitehouse, in case you were wondering.

For today’s final tune we’re going back to the Seventies again, for another bit of lunacy:

I love this one, as much for the slightly puzzled looks on some of the kids’ faces as for the song itself. You can almost hear the conversations now, can’t you: “It’s summer outside, so why do we have snow indoors” – this video was apparently made in July. There’s actually a lot I like about this one, which for us is a real Christmas classic. Wizzard were a glam rock band, started by Roy Wood after he left The Move and had a short spell with the earliest incarnation of ELO. This was released in 1973, and spent four weeks at a peak position of #4 over the Christmas/New Year period. It still sounds fresh to me today!

That’s today’s five but, as always, I like to leave you with a little extra something. So many of you commented on the Hafod Hardware ad that I included in the previous set that I have decided to play the other three that they made at the end of these posts: one down, this one, then two more to come, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so that fits nicely. These were all made on a shoestring budget, most of which was spent on licensing the music by the wonderful Andrea Von Kampen. This is their 2017 offering, where it all began: