B*WITCHED - "To You I Belong" The wintry sleeve and video make the game here obvious even if the song doesn’t – B*Witched’s third single is a notional shot at the Christmas Number One.Jona And The Wassail Christmas traditions are funny things – some of the most fixed turn out to have relatively recent roots, and new ones are manufactured all the time.I'm not talking about Christmas wraps, burritos, salads, pies or even… TFTACOXS - December 18: When Is A Christmas Sandwich Not A Christmas Sandwich? For this entry we are approaching the fuzzy boundary of the Christmas sanger, where taxonomy begins to break down.You don’t see too many bands use the dummy routine nowadays do you ? This was another fine glam era Xmas song which, when I’m listening properly (ie not in a shop !- can’t we go back to muzak ?) I still enjoy. All that aside, I loved Mud and at this stage they could pretty much do no wrong. Needless to say nothing further occured between us but the young lady in question, bless her, did at least have the grace not to mention it again. A tumbleweed moment followed after which I hastily retreated to the comfort of the school bar. It wasn’t until the song was pretty much through that I realised I wasn’t getting the favoured response I had hoped for and my singing kind of trailed off – leaving, as the record ended, an uneasy silence. Now I’m not saying I can’t sing – that wasn’t the problem – I just wasn’t aware that you didn’t do that cos it’s extremely naff & uncool. Enter the cruel & mocking tones of Les Gray whereupon I decided, in my wisdom, to sing-a-long with the record. It was the annual school Xmas disco 1974 & having spent most of the evening standing with my mates trying to look cool and eyeing up the talent I had taken the plunge and managed to grab a particularly foxy chick (using the parlance of the time), somewhat suprisingly, for the last dance. This song resonates with me primarily because it soundtracked one of my first ’embarrassing moments with members of the opposite sex’ type incidents. It seems mightily odd to be commenting on (& listening to) a Christmas song out of the season of goodwill but I will try my best & suffer for the cause. « BARRY WHITE – “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” Popular ’74 » Comments « 1 2 All
If you’re reading this on Christmas Eve, then all I can say is, Merry Christmas Readers … *choke* … wherever you are. If you’re coming back to Popular after Christmas and reading this, I hope you’ll forgive my indulgence of its festive sentiment – and I hope you had a very good time. The payoff line is but the star on top of the tree.
To be honest the chorus isn’t all that, but the verses ramp things up nicely ( “an UNLIT CHRISTMAS TREE!”) and then the spoken word section is a triumph of the very ripest corn, shovelling on the heartbreak – “this is the time of year when you really…you really NEED love” – in defiance of firstly shame and secondly the very terrible acting skills on display. The template for “Lonely This Christmas” is transparently Elvis, specifically “Are You Lonesome Tonight”, but the sentiment in that song is but a light dusting of snowflakes compared to the full-on blizzard of passive-aggressive mopery Mud unleash. It’s all there in the video – the members of Mud, looking like they’re fighting to choke back sobs as their pitiful tale unfolds their leader’s face a mask of wounded dignity, only his colossal spectacles hiding his utmost grief.
#Mud lonely this christmas license#
Not just the basic cynicism of releasing a Christmas song, rushing in to fill the gap Slade had punched the year before (anyway, releasing Christmas songs is such a basic part of pop it barely qualifies as cynical: if you refuse a grab at this particular brass ring you should probably have your pop license revoked) – “Lonely This Christmas” is one of pop’s most brazenly manipulative guilt trips. Or perhaps froze it still further, as what the video did was make me appreciate what a marvellously cynical record this is. I was all ready to give this a pasting before seeing the video on TMF’s Ultimate 40 Christmas Songs melted my Scroogeian heart.
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