Squeaking into the Christmas canon just as the gates were closing, “Mistletoe And Wine” is a hard song to listen to charitably in late July. Mind you, it was a hard song to listen to charitably in late December 1988. Good Christmas songs since Slade’s 1973 breakthrough have been an extension of pop – aimed at the same buyers, performed in the same style, with only the seasonal trimmings and sleigh bell presets to mark them out from what else was going on. “Mistletoe And Wine”, on the other hand, is in the tradition of “When A Child Is Born” – it has nothing to do with any of the currents of pop in 1988. It’s the first Christmas hit since “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma” to be aimed squarely at people who only buy singles at this time of year.
Unlike “Grandma” at least it isn’t setting itself up as a present for an old lady who deserves better. But I still don’t like it: the twinkly arrangements and choirs are dressing for a sanctimonious centre, like a lecture on the “true meaning of Christmas” in school Assembly. The religious bits felt shoehorned in to me at the time – as indeed they were: the song was originally a satirical one from a musical based on The Little Match Girl, and was meant to prod at the self-satisfaction of the middle classes who feasted and made merry while the poor starved. Cliff thoroughly repurposed the tune: self-satisfaction is now A-OK as long as you remember the Baby Jesus.
If the 15 year old me, secure in my teenage atheism, had known about that I’d have taken great delight in pointing it out before going home to my own very securely off Christmas feastings. As it was I just grumbled about what an incredibly clumsy line “children singing Christian rhymes” is (and I was right). But really what hobbles “Mistletoe And Wine” isn’t even the sanctimony, it’s that there’s no sense of wonder backing it up. The best secular Christmas songs get at something true and thrilling about Christmas, even if it’s the bug-eyed greediness of a happy child. But the best Christmas carols have some kind of awe at their centre – they’re songs about an event so impossible and vital it split time in two, and even if I still don’t believe in that event I can be moved by others’ belief in it as filtered through art. We’ll have a couple more chances to see if Cliff Richard could rise to that challenge – “Mistletoe” is memorable but too pat, and the overall impression is of a sugared pill.
Score: 3
[Logged in users can award their own score]
Or as we used to sing “gifts on the fire and logs on the tree, the worst Christmas that there’ll ever be.”
This is the first pop song I can remember hating, and my feelings haven’t really changed. A 3 seems generous.
A very obvious song in many ways, with an especially monotonous drum track – which makes it a bit odd that sometimes a second beat gets thrown in (so it goes “dum dum-dum” instead of “dum dum”) – perhaps it is the drummer letting us know they’re not dead. Also far too long, which is probably why it keeps trying to build more and more (the final straw of course being the kid’s bit). A 2. Grubby.
Love the YouTube video description – “This one was released in 1988 and reached #1 on the UK secular charts.” Is there a seperate subchart for Christians?
EDIT: Oh dear, apparently so.
Also be aware that any length could be considered “too long”.
EDIT 2: Straight in at fifth-worst on the FT Bottom 100!
EDIT 3: Green text on blue! Whose idea was that?
#1 It does! I thought I’d given it a 2, obviously not. I will honour my mistake as a hidden intention though (and it’s still just about better than Shakey).
Ugh. 3 is way to high for this, even looking at the other songs you’ve given a 3 to, I’d rather hear Boney M or Johnny Mathis’s Christmas songs than this one (or even Shakey’s which got a 2), or Cliff’s Living Doll. This is an easy 1 for me, no redeeming features whatsoever
this seems an appropriate end for what has been a mostly dreary and backward looking year for number 1s.
re #3 and hidden intentions – what irritates me (amongst pretty much everything else about the record) is that for all Cliff’s pantomimed sincerity you know what really motivates him is getting the Christmas Number One
The video is bizarre – why is the little girl’s window open in freezing winter and why is Cliff leering in at her? What’s the deal with Cliff kneeling down in front of the gushing pump and then getting his mallet out to bang the gong? Such are the grinch like sentiments this song provokes.
Gimme ‘Christmas in the Heart’ over this any day.
Hahaha I have a fond affection for this – mainly the dreadful cgi snow in the video (fake snow not actually that hard to do, dudes!) and Cliff’s super OTT confirm/deny hand gestures. And when it slows down for “The TYEEME for FYEEEGHTING and HAYYYTING to CEEEEASE…” I always let out a hearty laugh and a cheer, and happily sink into the mindless sherry-doused seasonal lobotomised stupor I am now allowed to enjoy as a grown-up, mouth agape and eyes glassy as I hurtle helplessly towards the end of another year. 7/10 from me!
Ahem, I always derive great pleasure from this one. Its the bizzare top-heavy accretion of every imaginable lyrical and musical signifier of Christmas that makes it quite an intense thing to listen to, and that you don’t get bored by half way through. Its fascinating to read about the musical theatre satirical source of the song, and it kind of supports the way that I’ve always heard it. Bearing this in mind, Sir Cliff’s ‘Silent Night’ interpolations add a tension to the single – Can it support the added churchy ingredient?
Of course, this contradiction between a secular tune and Christian lyrics had the potential to be further explored by Sir Cliff…
And who couldn’t be nonplussed by that baffling vocoder bit that comes in half way through?
“Logs on the fire and gifts on the tree” though, surely that should be UNDER the tree? I always imagine a bent tree bearing the weight of an Xbox at that point.
TOTPWatch: Cliff Richard performed Mistletoe & Wine on the edition of Top Of The Pops transmitted on 8 December 1988. Also in the studio that week were; Status Quo and Angry Anderson. Nicky Campbell & Caron Keating were the hosts.
Xbox? I can confirm that 1988 was all about i) My Little Pony Dream Castle (which included a HORSE THRONE for Majesty to stand on) ii) She-Ra Princess Of Power, whose flimsy sword I managed to break within about 5 minutes.
#9 in the BBC adaptation of “The Box Of Delights”, shown a few years before this, there’s a depiction of a posh 30s Xmas party at a Bishop’s house where the presents (for the village children) are almost all hanging from the branches of an enormous tree. That’s the kind of thing he’s reaching back to I think.
(i.e. yes it’s possible if you have a big enough tree!)
The way Cliff sings “FIGHding” here really is something only he can do.
Funny, The Box Of Delights did come to my mind before this entry was written wrt the kind of spirit being tapped into (tho badly).
There was a funny festive CassetteBoy mash-up years ago ft this (“Christians on the fire”).
#2 watch: the next number 1, but below that Erasure’s CRACKERS International EP, NOT officially a Christmas song but does have that title plus the synth bells halfway thru ‘Stop’ and “together again” references v appropriate for that time of year.
Christmas 88. Cliff Richard’s “Mistletoe And Wine”. The title suggests if anything a supremely secular Office Piss-up and all the workplace cliches that bubble up to the surface like the bubbles of the supermarket champagne, Mr Boss Man has provided. But wait! This is Cliff! God-Botherer-in-chief (well after The Pope and The Archbishop Of Canterbury…and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. And some notable becollared and bepurpled others). OK, the PEOPLE’S God-Botherer-in-chief, would not sing of office piss-ups or photocopied arses. And here, he does (not) disappoint, depending on which side of the secular fence you stand. To many, there’s something extremely comforting about latter-day Cliff. There’s that safe, dependable aura about him. The whole world could be going to hell in a handcart* and there would be Cliff. Wholesome Cliff. Devout christian Cliff. Charitable Cliff. The often quoted cliche was that Tom Jones would have knickers thrown at him on stage, Cliff got incontinence pants, reflecting the age of his audience. He’s the poster boy for middle-class Middle England.
So who better to deliver unto us, a Christmas #1?
The problem with this song is all in the preachiness of the whole exercise. We’re being chided here. We’ve lost touch with the true meaning of Christmas, like so many vicars from their pulpits had been telling their dwindling congregations for years. Cliff wades with his reimagining of Pete Seeger’s funereal folk “Turn! Turn! Turn” (a time for…) and transforms it into festive wonder and innocence. Adorned with all the sickly sweet festive memes, it’s positively laden down with Message. If we don’t start doing it properly, then all we’ll have is Xmas. That commercial imposter that empties our bank balances in the name of greed and excess. An angry and frustrated Cliff would return another day with a more visual and less palatable seasonal Message, that elevates this example somewhat. A generous 4.
*Richard Littlejohn, another Middle England favourite.
I felt a bit sorry for one of his backing singers Michael Mullins who did a few TOTP’s himself as lead singer of Modern Romance on their later hits but now reduced to umming and aaahing behind the Great Man.
As trad RC myself I’ve always found Cliff’s evangelic fervour unappetising and the fact that he’s pretty thick, often missing the entire point of the question in interviews, makes it difficult for me to understand how he’s been so effective (in the UK at least the rest of the world being largely indifferent to him).
All the same it must be nice to be able to say “my 99th single just went to number one “.
I’m two and a half minutes through this song for the first time right now and it feels like it’s been going on for hours. Dear God this is shit.
The front page cut-off made your comment excitingly ambiguous MBI: “I’m two and a half minutes through this song for the first time right now and… I AM READY TO ACCEPT JESUS INTO MY LIFE”
Bloody hell. What a chart year, eh? I momentarily perked up when I thought Cliff was saying ‘loves on the fire’, but no, it’s bloody ‘logs’. Bloody. Bloody. Not even a naff final key-change to keep us awake, I was thinking Gremlins and Steeple Spire Impalements by the end:
2
Come now, swanstep, this is a time for hating and fighting to cease. (Wait, hang on – this is July. As you were.)
My first time hearing this all the way through too. Once again I’m grateful that Christmas-themed number ones aren’t really something that the Australian charts do. 2.
” “Mistletoe And Wine”, on the other hand, is in the tradition of “When A Child Is Born” – it has nothing to do with any of the currents of pop in 1988. ”
What was the house-style Christmas single of 1988? There must have been one.
By 87/88 Cliff was enjoying another of his periodic commercial upswings, but unlike his turn of the decade purple patch this one didn’t seem to be the result of making decent records as much as blind loyalty on behalf of his middle aged following. I believe I’m right in saying that this was the 1988’s biggest selling single. Looking back, this seems incredible.
And yes, I know it’s an obvious target, but really.. ‘children singing Christian rhyme’. ‘Christian rhyme’?? Whoever allowed that line to pass as finished work should have been taken outside and shot, Christmas or no Christmas.
#21 possibly Star Turn On 45 Pints, at it again with ‘Christmas Party’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlAewWu5VHE (not really worth clicking that tbh).
#20 that said this was really the last truly Christmas-themed (certainly in terms of going into evocative detail about the day and its unique associations) #1 in the UK. obv there have been many near-misses since but MAW marks the end of these overtly celebratory festive pop statements at #1 and it doesn’t look like one will ever reclaim the position.
No, seriously, I couldn’t even make it past five seconds of a second listen. This is abysmal. This is 6 million times worse than any other Number One of 1988 (except for Glenn Medeiros, for which it is about 1.5 times worse).
Re #2 – What qualifies for the Christian chart? Would Johnny Cash? Late 70s Bob Dylan? Judee Sill? It’s a minefield. Though in reality I’m sure they just count music on Christian record labels. Anyway, I hope something like this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8 – would be up there.
#22 – Yes, the ‘Christian rhymes’ bit sounds to me like “an unmissable opportunity to indoctrinate children through song”
No wonder I can’t remember any of the 1988 chart toppers, they were all rubbish. I must have spent the year in a nightclub or something.
Is this Cliff’s first obvious stab at a Xmas #1? It seems desperately cynical. Well, more than most yuletide chart toppers because it’s so dreadful.
Of course, the bona fide house-style hit single of December 1988 was ‘Good Life’ by Inner City, getting as high as number 4 by the end of the year. That would have been a good Christmas number one.
Other great hit singles in the same chart; ‘Buffalo Stance’- Nenah Cherry, ‘Fine Time’ – New Order, ‘Stakker Humanoid’ – Humanoid, ‘Left To My Own Devices’ – Pet Shop Boys.
Re: 22. ‘My Pretty One’ is great! The arrangement really captures the sensation of an upswing of fragile romantic optimism.
Likewise, Some People, but otherwise it was a shortlived last hurrah. Of course there’s at least one more Xmas #1. Shouldn’t have to think too hard about the artist…
Cliff had never had a Xmas #1 about Dec 25 before. Little Town in the early 80s was too clever and pleased with itself to connect, bad jazz even. With The Eyes Of A Child in the late sixties was way gloopier than MAW, quite horrid. Either way, MAW can’t have been a cynical stab at yet anutha Cliffmas #1. Before this it would only have felt like a guranteed #19 smash.
An easy 1 out of 10 for the song.
The video gets 2 out of 10, the extra point for Cliff crouching next to a pissing horse from 0:47 onwards.
# 17 – “Dear God this is shit”. What a wonderful line this is when talking about this record. Bravo!
# 14 – Nice piece, fats, and I agree entirely that “Mistletoe and Wine” does indeed smack of the office party, an event at which the Christ Child is about as significant as the Easter Bunny (or even our very own darling Spoiler Bunny). The “Mistletoe” sees any number of blokes hanging around trying to snog Sarah, the beautiful doe-eyed young temp, having first been emboldened by the “Wine”. And, yes, along then comes Mr Boss Man with his bottles of piss for the prolls. Sarah, meanwhile, has escaped and is hiding in the messengers’ lobby with “Old Fred”, whose pin-up was Margaret Lockwood and is thus far too past it to trouble the traumatised young lovely. More “Wine” and suddenly Marjorie, office manager and Peggy Mount-lookalike is dragged over to the “Mistletoe” and set upon by men mistaking her for Sarah. Mr Boss Man sees the flashing lights and departs, organising a cab for the still trembling temp as he leaves. More “Wine” and then the fights start, precipitating the arrival of “Security”, paid thugs, who have also been bevvying away themselves and wondering why Sarah is not around anywhere. Punch-up. Throw-up. Clean-up. Cover-up. Happy New Year.
Why would Cliff want to befoul Christmas with a song like this. What an ungodly tosser!
#15 I can’t believe I never realised it was the Modern Romance chap. I can picture the backing singer now – so obvious; that auburn flick from 1982, now accompanied by a bounteous mullet.
Of course this song is dreadful tosh. So even, so one-paced, so mawkishly fake. As mentioned upthread, that festive season was all about ‘Stop!’, ‘Left To My Own Devices’, ‘Buffalo Stance’, ‘Good Life’; they formed the spine of a terrific tape I made for Nicola Graves’ Christmas shindig. Yes, I was the overbearing sort who commandeered the tape deck. I bet you lot were as well.
Would it not have been a travesty if, in the post-Slade era of Christmas number ones actually mattering, good old Cliffbert never had one?
If you accept that he was due one on account of his longevity, then why not this one? I don’t like it; you don’t like it; most people we know don’t like it; but it’s not for us. It’s one of those moments where you just stand back and let someone else have a go… and you hope, having done it once, that he’ll at least have the good grace not to do it again!
Mindful of the decreasing popularity of his Godfearing run of Billy Graham Army recruitment singles in the early seventies, Cliff the Christian now opted for the pipe-and-slippers approach, or at least would have done had he resisted the increasing tendency towards pomp and bombast. “Mistletoe And Wine” is a simple enough, workaday 3/4 singalong about the “time to rejoice in the good that we see” taking in everything from singing “carolers” to “logs on the fire and gifts on the tree” and not forgetting the syntactically awkward “a time for forgiving and for forgetting” and the inevitable “silent night, holy night.”
But the line “Ours for the taking – just follow The Master” signals the pulling out of stops as symphony orchestras, tubular bells, tympani and choirboys all join in as though climaxing a substandard Mike Batt musical. In approach and execution, though its production is firmly “modern,” the record is rooted in the pre-rock age, and perhaps for that reason (as well as a “30 Years In Showbiz” give-him-a-number-one campaign) it was an easy Christmas number one. Not my cup of chimera (“Chrissss-tmas tieeemme/Mistletoe and wieeennne/Chilllll-dren siiii-nging Chrissss-tian rhy-ieeeemes”), and not the most representative record in a chart which also included Neneh’s “Buffalo Stance,” Inner City’s “Good Life,” New Order’s “Fine Time” and Stakker’s “Humanoid” – i.e. the nineties start here. But to discover the secret of its success, you only have to go as far as my mum, watching the Christmas Day TOTP as, over the final tympani roll before the final climax, Cliff called out “Merry Christmas everyone!” and my mum instinctively and immediately beamed back “Merry Christmas Cliff!” Bless her!
Even worse, it’s an over-enunciated “Chrisss-teee-ann rhymes”, which sounds like the name of a country and western singer.
@34 – the line “Ours for the taking – just follow The Master”
Here come the drums, here come the drums…
A vaguely popular variant was noted by myself in “the street” that Christmas, namely: “Christmas time/Drink driving fine/Children singing/Gies five Woodbine.”
my word there were some good records in this chart weren’t there? ‘mistletoe and wine’ isn’t quite one of them, but i’m a bit more fondly disposed than most here. if anything my atheism has hardened since the time i hated this with teenage fury, but i’ve softened considerably on sentiment and (not unrelated) on cliff. it probably helps that the bar is set shockingly low for me and xmas songs – basically, as long as they don’t feature bo selecta i’m sold, but also the great welling crescendo djp identifies really does have a certain grandeur and, struggling now, cliff’s arm waving ‘dance’ invents the bandstand finale of each episode of ‘in the night garden’, so points for that. hmm, that’s not a great deal. to summarise, i like xmas songs and this is an xmas song so i like it (a bit).
@38 Cliff’s arm-waving dance reminds me of the closing scenes of The Wicker Man.
re 39 ‘logs on the fire’
Hmm…burning bandstands
Ah, “The Wicker Man”. What a heart-warming wee film!
(See what I did there?)
Yeah, I know. Coat.
Wow, “Good Life” was the top 5? I forgotten about that.
I’ve always viewed this gramophone as Cliff’s “Frog Chorus”, in that every few seconds brings a new level of ridiculousness until there’s a singular moment of ridiculousness that’s effectively the Ridiculous Christmas Fairy atop a Christmas Tree of Ridiculousness, and any further ridiculous moments after that are merely ridiculous tinsel trimmings!!!!!!
… And for me the Ridiculous Christmas Fairy was when that inexplicable warbly harmonica assaulted my earholes from underneath a sea of treacle at the end of the instrumental break, only to be immediately followed by a totally unfathomable fretless bass jazz-solo odyssey at the start of verse three, apparently oblivious to Cliff’s vocals, which then disappeared in a crap multi-tracked keyboard glissando splurge!!!! As those notes hit the ground, so did any respect I had left for Cliff, who to be fair was enjoying a late rally with “My Pretty One” and in particular “Some People”, before this behemoth of bilge!!!!!! “Logs on the fire”, indeed!!!!!!!!!
Incidentally, this might have also been the “Frog’s Chorus” for Xmas pop records in general!!!! Is anyone aware of any proper Xmas pop records (ie not parody) post MAW?!???!?!?
Yes, but the bunny (not to mention the Bunny) would be annoyed.
‘Tis that time of the year when you might want to reflect upon #1s from other territories. In the US, Will to Power were enjoying one week at the top with their sublime “Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley”
Oh, that was also the week that Christie Ann Rhymes won the grand prize on Star Search, which led of course to her chart-topping duet with Billy Ray Cyrus, “I Forgive You For Forgettin'”
Perhaps I was a bit harsh singling out Robin Beck’s single as a rare example of an elongated advertising jingle which barely feels like a proper single. Cliff’s effort here feels like more of the same, except the marketing on this occasion is focussed on Christianity rather than Coca Cola.
Hmmm… Jesus invented Christmas… but Coke invented Santa Claus… but which is the most festive? There’s only one way to find out….
@34 When Cliff calls out ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ the whole studio audience also replies ‘THANK YOU!’ like obedient school kids, which I thought was very funny and quite charming.
As everyone else has mentioned, so many brilliant records around at the time, such a shame this is what has to represent such an exciting period. As a mass appeal pop record that’s pretty decent, I think ‘Stop’ would have made a great Xmas number one (even if ‘Good Life’ or ‘Buffalo Stance’ would have been more thrilling).
A great Xmas school disco this year, and quite a happy period for me, though 1989 would be quite a bit tougher…
This gets a one from me, sorry Clifford.
I missed out on this at the time.
Instead I was having a whale of a time in Upstate New York. Never mind the wall-to-wall Tin Pan Alley standards that issued from Momma B’s kitchen radio. I could never understand why Judy Garland singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas fell into this category, Surely just because it’s got the word ‘Christmas’ in the first line doesn’t make that miserable and slightly bitter song seasonably appropriate. But then I’m not American and I can’t fathom these things.
Christmas in Verona meant proper snow, up to my knees in the street, with snowmen to build (a carrot from Momma B’s shed to establish gender), and my glasses freezing opaquely on entering the house, and if I played my cards right a Ski-Doo to ride manically around the yard (a ‘yard’ being a very different beast from the small concrete-floored enclosures of Barrow)
And no Cliff Richard in sight. Bliss!