Taking Music for a Christmas Walk

Christmas music you're not already bored by. Important stuff at the end, too.

Dec 22, 2023

Ye Prologue

For a number of years, I did a music show on Saturday nights on BBC local radio in the wild West Midlands. The idea of the show was ‘Taking Music for a Walk’, inspired by the artist Paul Klee’s description of drawing as ‘taking a line for a walk’. High-concept stuff? Not really, it was just me playing a great record then playing another great record that sounded great after the first great record. Repeat for three hours. The net was cast quite wide: Fats Waller to the Chemical Brothers, and beyond. Sometimes wayyyy beyond. Key text: ‘Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)’ by Reunion. (That record makes me well up.) Can you tell I loved doing that show?

Anyway - from time to time, I’d do themed shows, sometimes occasion-related. Example: The Creepy Kooky Icky Ooky Halloween Goth Special. And of course, a special show on the last Saturday before Christmas.

This post is an attempt to recreate the vibe of one of those shows. I hope you enjoy checking out the music.

“Listen … they’re playing our song …”

Ye Terms and Conditions

I nearly bottled out of writing this post, because there’s so much Christmas music to choose from … and then I thought that’s exactly why I should write it. For one thing, the sheer quantity of music at your fingertips can make it hard to find what you want, or something new. And for another thing, it can seem like for all the wealth of Christmas music out there, you only ever hear the same fifteen or twenty tunes and you’re bloody sick of them by the First Sunday in Advent.

These choices may surprise, delight or appal you. Them’s the breaks. Let me know.

Individual tracks or pieces are from YouTube. Entire albums are on Spotify, despite their parsimonious royalty rates.

Hey Ho, Let’s Go

Run Rudolph Run - Keith Richards

The Human Riff was eighty years old a few days ago, so let’s start with him, reviving a song I always thought was written by Chuck Berry, but wasn’t. It’s as lovably ramshackle as Keef himself is, with the band apparently uncertain if they’re playing a straight four or a shuffle.

While we’re thinking about Father Christmas’s choice of transport …

Santa Drives a Hot Rod - The Brian Setzer Orchestra

Sumptuous horn chart, dazzling guitar, and ridiculous in a distinctly hip-swinging fashion. Brian Setzer (formerly of the Stray Cats, you remember) is a kind of Michael Bublé for the Kustom Klassics/Viva Las Vegas crowd. (See you at VLV ‘24 if the money comes through in time.) He plays a series of Christmas Extravaganza shows every year. Here’s a video from one of them, because if I can play you a song that includes the word ‘jinglehorse’, I’m not going to shirk that opportunity. Also: b/vox in fur trim and go-go boots. Happy Christmas to me.

Another band that does an annual run of festive shows is this fantastic bunch from New England, who I saw a few years back at Shrewsbury Folk Festival (see you at the next one):

Santa Claus is Coming to Town - The Sweetback Sisters

Super tight harmonies, Bob Wills-esque fiddle, and Telecaster twang, all I need to put a smile on my face. Cowboy boots too, hooray.

OK, so far so normal. Let’s go off-piste a little …

Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis - Tom Waits

If you’ve opened a Christmas card and found a printed round-robin along the lines of ‘Araminta’s volunteering in Chile, Byron graduated from St Andrews and I was given my MBE at Buckingham Palace’, squint a little, let your eyes glaze over and imagine that instead, you’re reading Tom Waits’ lyric.

Now, though, we’re in the realms of Christmas songs with placenames in the title, exactly the sort of tenuous connection I’d use to keep the musical walk going.

Which leads us to …

Christmas in Hollis - Run DMC

Great record. Terrible video. Remember that two-bar horn sample, though, you’ll hear it again soon (also the sort of connection I used a lot).

Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto - James Brown

The Godfather of Soul might not seem the most obvious Christmas artist, but as well as being a tremendous, ground-breaking performer, he was a hell of a sharp businessman. And Christmas equals cash. Hence this, from his 1968 album A Soulful Christmas, which also contains the awesome but not-in-the-least-seasonal ‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) Parts 1 & 2’ - ‘Uhh! With your bad self!’ - and the distinctly goodwill-deficient ‘Believers Shall Enjoy (Non-Believers Shall Suffer)’.

Christmas Island - Leon Redbone

The ultimate title-equals-placename Christmas song. I bloody love this. When Jaynie Carpenter and I did Christmas gigs as Green Moon, I’d lobby hard for ‘Christmas Island’ to be on the setlist. As she would have to sing it, though, she had the casting vote. And she absolutely hates it, so the world was deprived of our interpretation.

Now we’re in a jazzier realm …

Merry Christmas, Baby - Kenny Burrell

This is basically an excuse to listen to Kenny Burrell playing a 12-bar blues. And once you’ve heard Kenny Burrell play the blues, you will find any excuse to listen to Kenny Burrell playing the blues. Just exquisite. No singing, though, which is a good reason for …

Merry Christmas, Baby - Charles Brown and Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt. Astonishing slide-guitar player. Great singer and songwriter. Sings backup alongside Emmylou Harris on Little Feat’s ‘Dixie Chicken’ (I’m not missing a chance to spread the word about Little Feat). Displaced Penelope Pitstop from my young heart within the first few minutes of this incredible TV performance. And recorded a number of duets with elder-statesmen of the blues which ranged from the flirtatious (like this with Charles Brown) to the positively incendiary (check this out!).

Brown’s 1947 original recording of this song redefines the term ‘louche’. But for utter unholy filth in plain sight, we need this:

Back Door Santa - Clarence Carter

I would direct your attention to the first line of the second verse, in particular. And (I love doing this kind of thing) to the two-bar horn riff, which was sampled by Run DMC for ‘Christmas in Hollis’ (see above). Good knowledge!

Time for a handbrake turn …

O Come, O Come Emmanuel - Belle & Sebastian

If you’ve not thought about traditional Christmas carols since primary school, take three and a half minutes to listen to Belle & Sebastian’s interpretation of this ancient Advent hymn. Simple, unvarnished intimacy, as if they’d actually recorded it in a stable at midnight.

More carols, but perhaps with a little more sparkle?

A Carol Symphony - Victor Hely-Hutchinson

Here’s a twenty-five-minute sequence of them, perfect for playing on a dark evening like tonight. For a jolt of nostalgia like a brandy-heavy mince pie, go straight to the variation on the First Nowell which was used as the theme music to the BBC’s 1984 TV adaptation of The Box of Delights.

And (as I often said on Saturday nights) if you like that, you’ll love this:

Fantasia on Christmas Carols - Ralph Vaughan Williams

I’m a sentimental old fool; a silly old Hector. I said so on my Hello You podcast recently, when talking about … Christmas stuff. It’s complicated. Listen to the episode and you’ll understand.

So I’m suddenly transported back to Upminster in Essex, being maybe four or five years old, and sitting by my mum’s old HMV record player listening to this, for example. (Yes, I’m a big softie. Yes, of course I’ve got a copy of it.)

Hence, could you indulge me for a few minutes?

Little Donkey - The Beverley Sisters

Sweet and simple. I can remember realising how the bass backing vocals mimicked the walk of the laden donkey, one of my first musical light-bulb moments. C’mon, I was four.

I loved that 1958 HMV Model 2008. I must’ve been exactly the kid EMI had in mind when they launched the HMV Junior Record Club. Yes, of course I’ve got almost all of these too, including catalogue number 7EG 119:

The First Christmas - Dame Edith Evans

This is a glimpse into history. No-one speaks like Dame Edith Evans today. You won’t hear a voice like that on the radio or in the street. If you think she sounds like a Victorian grandmother, you wouldn’t be far wrong. She recorded it in 1959, when she was in her early seventies.

That’s why I love old spoken-word records. This is the voice of a woman who was born in 1888. That blows my mind somewhat.

And Dame Edith didn’t quit. If you’ve ever seen The Slipper and The Rose, Bryan Forbes’s 1976 re-imagining of the Cinderella story, there she is, playing the Dowager Queen. Aged eighty-eight. What a woman.

OK, before I round up some albums and sequences that’ll make the perfect background music for present wrapping or whatever you still need to do, here’s probably my favourite Christmas record of all:

It’s a Big Country - Davitt Sigerson

This was released on A Christmas Record, a 1981 various-artists release on the then-achingly-cool Ze Records, home at the time to August Darnell/Kid Creole, Was (Not Was), Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band, and, erm, Suicide. It’s the last track on side two, and after some fairly frantic selections, this lovely, simple song feels like slumping down on the sofa on Christmas Eve and opening a card from a friend.

Why wasn’t it absolutely massive, and a Christmas classic of all time? Because also on that album is ‘Christmas Wrapping’ by the Waitresses, a surprise and lasting hit so huge that the rest of the album’s been unfairly forgotten.

All well and good, but …

… what if you want to fire up your laptop, CD player, Thorens TD160 or whatever and just groove on the tunes? Some albums for your consideration:

Sooner After Solstice: A Transatlantic Folk Christmas - A Winter Union

So fresh it only came out last month. Five tremendous British folk musicians with one of the best albums I’ve heard all year. Wonderful singing, gorgeous playing … this has been in my CD player since I got it two weeks ago. It finishes, I start it playing again.

Veni Emmanuel: Music for Advent - The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

If you loved the Belle & Sebastian cut and want more of the slightly spare, understated vibe combined with the unique magic of English choral singing, check this out.

A Traditional Carol Collection - The Sixteen

The Sixteen are incredible. They’ve made quite a few amazingly good Christmas albums. The three-CD set The Christmas Collection is a great place to start. Sold out on The Sixteen’s website, but Amazon have four left. Hurry.

Christmas with Chet Atkins

Enjoyable on two levels: you can have it burbling away in the background while you’re doing Christmassy stuff, and pretend you’re in a Hallmark Christmas rom-com. Or if you’re a guitar player, you can listen to an unshowy genius who took Travis picking to whole new places. In particular, listen to how Atkins uses harmonics. And how hard he drives the studio compressors, too.

Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang! Episode 69: Hala Hala Christmas

Mixcloud is a great place to find people who love music, playing you the music they love. I’ll do another post sometime with a few of my favourite Mixcloud creators, but I really want you to hear this.

DJ Honey’s Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang! is a monthly show packed with tremendous female-led soul, jazz, funk and R&B singles. I bloody love it, and if you’ve dug almost anything on this page, you will, too. Honey’s recently moved from Singapore to Australia, and this hour of power contains some of the most whacked-out Christmas music you’ll ever hear, sourced from record shops across south-east Asia. Sadly, Honey doesn’t do any spoken links (check out this recent show to hear her in action) but the amazing archive audio drop-ins between the tunes definitely make up for it. Where the hell did she find them?!