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From Elvis to Shakey, from Cliff Richard to Mark E Smith, every pop star worth their salt has sung a song of Santa at some point. But there is an art to the festive ditty
Writing a Christmas song feels to me like having the opportunity to write a Bond theme; the difference is that anyone can have a go, every year. To others, though, the Christmas song seems to carry the same stigma as Eurovision. Many of pop's biggest stars have run scared of it and it's largely been left to the most unlikely of acts – Mud, the Pogues, Low, Wizzard, Chris Rea and the Beach Boys – to soundtrack our fraught shopping expeditions and last-day-at-work pub blowouts. Rules are there to broken, and the same holds true for Christmas songs. There's no allowing for an oddity like Bobby Vinton's Santa Must Be Polish (must he? Why?), or Marvin Gaye's sleazy instrumental Christmas in the City, which sounds like the 3am aftermath of an international financial company's office party. And Ronan Keating's impression of Shane MacGowan on his cover of Fairytale of New York, losing that awkward "faggot" line and wisely using "haggard" instead, has a freakish charm of its own. Still, follow this short guide to Christmas song writing and you may not end up with the next White Christmas, but you might have a No 37 smash like Saint Etienne's I Was Born on Christmas Day.
1. Sound like you enjoy Christmas
You need to like Christmas to sing about Christmas – Elvis clearly did, and I'd venture from his clock-watching delivery on Merry Christmas Everyone that Shakin' Stevens doesn't. But my feelings don't run quite as strongly as those of Mark E Smith of the Fall, who once sang: "I hate the guts of Shakin' Stevens for what he has done/ The massacre of Blue Christmas, on him I'd like to land one on." Smith, we must assume, likes Christmas, as does the similarly inscrutable Bob Dylan, who does a fine Vincent Price impersonation in the Must Be Santa video but delivers the song like a cartoon puppy version of himself.
2. Steer clear of religion
The mention of Santa and his faithful reindeer means Christmas songs already require a leap of faith. So keeping Jesus out is another rule of thumb. There is a place for him, but we all know Christmas is a tarted up solstice celebration, and Elvis was so much better growling "you've been a real good little girl, Santa Claus Is Back in Town!" than he was solemnly singing O Come All Ye Faithful with a choir. Wibbling around with carols is always a terrible idea. Boyz II Men's Silent Night is exhibit one – as they stretch every sinew to impress St Peter, the boyz suggest they can hardly wait to ascend to heaven. Johnny Mathis attempted an odd multifaith hit on When a Child Is Born, the 1976 Christmas No 1, which suggested the world is waiting for a second coming, a baby that could be "black, white, yellow … no one knows". Managing to be both PC and also racially insulting – that's quite a feat.
3. Use sleigh bells
Sleigh bells are the sound of snow – little wonder they've been deployed to great effect by Phil Spector, Wizzard, Mariah Carey and countless more. But their devastating use was by Michigan indie rockers Low – their Just Like Christmas sounds like a battle between a platoon of Santa's belled-up reindeer and the employees of a tambourine factory. The fact that it references Stockholm and Oslo doesn't hurt, allowing the musky scent of glögg to waft out of the speakers. Also recommended are low wordless harmonies, the kind that summon up a cosy fireside. Once their stars were dimming, many of the 70s' biggest prog-rock names had a bash at Christmas songs, which made sense – given they spent the first half of the decade mastering mellotrons and the delicate art of fairytale lyrics: Mike Oldfield's Portsmouth and In Dulce Jubilo were both instrumental Top 5 hits that neatly suggested Christmas without the need for Christian rhymes; Jethro Tull's Ring Out Solstice Bells was 1976's alternative to Johnny Mathis; and Yes's Jon Anderson came up with a whole album – 3 Ships – in 1985 that still seems to get annual airplay in the Sydenham branch of Sainsbury's.
4. Embrace the clanging chimes of doom
Not everything about December is tinsel-touched. There is room for despair in Christmas song, especially if you handle it with the deadpan panache of the erstwhile Mothercare heiress, Harvard graduate and "socialite nihilist" Cristina. She could have become the smart crowd's answer to Madonna – she was similarly well connected on New York's post-punk scene, and married ZE Records boss Michael Zilkha. But it didn't happen and, appropriately, her Things Fall Apart is the existentialist crisis of festive songs: "They all got wrecked, they laughed too loud/ I started to feel queasy in the crowd/ I grabbed a cab back to my flat/ And wept a bit. And fed the cat."
5. No finger-wagging
It's Christmas time – there's no need to be a pain. We all want world peace. Cliff Richard's manic grin and wild arm-swinging on the Mistletoe and Wine video has a solid place on my playlist, but I can live without the shots of concentration camps that accompany The Millennium Prayer. And don't say "Christmas, it's all commercialised" or you'll sound like Adrian Mole. Even Greenwich Village's second greatest folkie, Phil Ochs, strayed close to Mole territory on No Christmas in Kentucky, a plea for solidarity with American miners that claims "the jingle bells don't jingle when you're poor." Did the mine owner take the clappers out? I'll bet he left muffin stumps for Santa instead of mince pies as well, the bastard.
6. Add sauce
Even Sir Cliff recommends mistletoe and wine; put them together and you have the ingredients for lewd behaviour. Eartha Kitt set the bar high with Santa Baby in 1954, but Ella Fitzgerald had already cut the unbroadcastable Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney ("when he came last year", would you believe) in 1950. Santa, Come Up To See Me might be a predictable Mae West festive title but the song is anything but. Over a folk-rock backing, the ageing Mae breaks into an eerie prediction of Kate Bush's December Will Be Magic Again, before subsiding into double entendres.
7. Don't be indie
Indie acts either tend to do something silly like pretend Christmas is rubbish, or they sing about animals: take Christmas Is Going to the Dogs by Eels – "we'd rather have chew toys than yule logs" – or Of Montreal, who went for the cutesy jugular with Christmas Isn't Safe for Animals. Worse, though, are "proper" versions of favourites, songs that used to be Christmas tat but are now Xfm friendly – step forward Jimmy Eat World and a version of Last Christmas on which the guitarist sounds like the Edge playing on a Spongebob six string. Honourable exception: Sally Shapiro, the angel atop the indie tree, and her Anorak Christmas. Such heavenly chord changes; only Scandinavians can manage this, probably because they're that much closer to Lapland.
8. Invite the family
We're full of bonhomie so by all means bring them along to the party, just as long as you don't get misty eyed – it's tough, but it can be done. Avoiding the mawkish is an under-celebrated Beach Boys song, Santa's Beard, about the visit to the department store of a little boy, "only five and a half, going on six". "Is that really Santa? Really, really Santa?" the kid asks, before pulling the pillow out of a department store Santa's shirt and yanking the beard off his chin. "He … he's just helping the real Santa" reply the Boys and that's it. Myth smashed. Childhood over. You can't help but feel this was a genuine cry for help dressed up as a novelty tune.
9. Don't forget Santa
Bores will go on about Coca-Cola inventing the red-and-white look and probably blame McDonald's for foisting turkey on to a nation of goose eaters, but if a Santa hat doesn't make an appearance on the sleeve (see Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime) then the jolly old man has to get at least one mention in the lyric. Lost classic of the genre: the Kinks' Father Christmas, in which Ray Davies dresses as Santa, gets mugged outside a department store, yet feels sympathy for the tykes who demand "Give us some money, give all the toys to the little rich boys". Possibly the only Christmas hit to mention Steve Austin.
10. Remember, absence makes the heart grow fonder
If you can't be home for Christmas you can certainly sing a heartbreaking song about it. Marvin Gaye's I Want to Come Home for Christmas takes the Dundee cake. He's a prisoner of war in Vietnam ("lying here in my cell, hoping my family is well"); he manages a spoken soliloquy about stopping the war, and also cries "I want to see Santa Claus" with almost unseemly gospel intensity. It would be my favourite Christmas song ever if Elvis hadn't cornered the market: his It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You) and I'll Be Home for Christmas ("if only in my dreams") are topped by the devastatingly melancholy If I Get Home On Christmas Day. Nowhere in the lyric does Elvis suggest he won't make it, but there's something about a man lost on the road home, and lost to his family, in the mournful bassline, the skittering drums, and the perceptible iciness of the production.
Bob Stanley is a member of Saint Etienne, whose Christmas album A Glimpse of Stocking is available from saintetienne.com. They play the Ritz, Manchester, tonight, and the Forum, London, tomorrow. He discusses Christmas records on Music Weekly this week: guardian.co.uk/musicweekly
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