EBN- As December 25 gets inexorably closer and closer, here is a list of the most familiar and traditional Christmas songs.
1. ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey
It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when Mimi’s inescapable earworm was just a forgotten novelty song from yet another standard-issue pop-singer holiday album. Now, in a post Love Actually world, hearing ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ for the first time in a year is one of the most reliable signs that the holidays are here.
2. ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!
A ballad of doomed romance, ‘Last Christmas’ features sleighbells and synths, plus some truly memorable knitwear in the video. But what really sets ‘Last Christmas’ songs apart is George Michael’s heart-on-sleeve delivery: his genuine heartbreak horror (‘My God! I thought you were someone to rely on’) and wistful, sexy whispers. The words ‘Merry Christmas’ never sounded so sultry.
3. ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ by Darlene Love
Is this the most moving Christmas tune of all time? Probably – the combination of Darlene Love’s impeccable pleading vocal, Phil Spector’s gloriously tinselly production and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry’s magical songwriting could make anyone, even the biggest Scrooge, melt like a snowman under a hairdryer. It’s just an absolutely perfect Christmas song.
4. ‘Stay Another Day’ by East 17
East 17’s all-time Christmas classic wasn’t supposed to be a Christmas song at all. As the Walthamstow, England group’s songwriting member Tony Mortimer told us recently, it’s actually an incredibly sad song inspired by his brother’s suicide. That raw emotion seems to seep into the group’s gorgeously sombre four-part harmonies and even the inevitable Christmas song sleigh bells, producing a peerless exercise in festive melancholy.
5. ‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby
The power of Christmas nostalgia itself is greater than real memories. Hence, all of us can hark back with Bing on this Irving Berlin-penned ’40s number to a white Christmas just like the ones we used to know, even if our true past is full of crushing disappointments (December 25, 1993 – no Hornby train set).
