MUD – "Lonely This Christmas"

Erm, yes. I have a shameful confession to make about this.

For many years, I believed that this really was Elvis!

In mitigation, I would say that I really wasn’t paying much attention to the charts at this time, and so I was almost certainly unaware that this was the Christmas number one. I only know it through years of irritating repetition in department stores and supermarkets when my mind was on other things, mainly trying to get what needed doing done as I get the screaming abdabs in crowds. And it’s just the sort of pure corn syrup Elvis would have been doing in the mid-seventies. So it was only when I acquired it to listen to as part of this project that I started thinking “oh, right. Much egg on face.”

It doesn’t really sound like the real Elvis, when you get up close, but then if it was it would spoil the point (and I’m quite sure the whole point was to produce an Elvis impersonation not to be taken too seriously.) As an impersonation, though, it does the job pretty well.

Normally I have my pop swot hat on when I listen along with this and think “Ah, what a silly and enjoyable pop construction. Good old Mud!”

Just occasionally though, I find myself in Tescos on about December the 23rd, utterly fed up and thinking how hard-faced and selfish everybody looks to me (and I must look to them) and tormented by all this jolly Slade and Jonah Lewie that they’re playing too loud… and I’m pleased to hear a song “of EMPTINESS! and MISERY!’ and hearing about how its “cold, so co-old this Christmas” has a surprisingly cathartic effect.

But in a sense this is Mud sounding like Mud – or the Mud to be at any rate (despite this being another Chinnichap song and production, this is much closer in sound to the later singles that Mud made without the RAK hitmeisters). As noted in my comments on “Tiger Feet”, the Presleyisms were always latent in Les Gray’s vocals. Here, he didn’t try to hide it is all.

(hi Geir and welcome btw)

Anyway, much as I feel there are very few bad Christmas records, and millions of good ones, this would only get a 5 or 6 from me. I don’t think Gray quite pulls off the vocal. Maybe if he had played it straight instead of for comedy effect…

I’m not sure if “the video” Tom mentions is the TOTP clip I associate closely with this record – the band seated and huddled together, filmed in close-up, having tons of fake snow dumped on them. It was much more amusing than it sounds.

Oh, dear God. A bloody miserable song as the Christmas number one?!… “I’m lonely this Christmas because my loved one has either buggered off or died?” Sorry, no. Just wrong. Les Gray wasn’t a Canadian, was he? Still, he’s dead himself now, ain’t he? So he knows all about being “cold, cold, cold” now, don’t he? Merry Christmas, Les…wherever you are.

Geir H (#7) – Yes, the fact that Wimbledon’s finest were denied by this miserable garbage continues to rankle me into my maturity. Still, I guess nobody died…oh wait, Les Gray did, didn’t he?!

May I just say to Erithian and Marcello that I am appending this on Boxing Day Afternoon and that I was driving around earlier today and swore blind that I more than one spotted “Boxing Day Bobby” going about his reprehensible but nevertheless profitable business.

how come so many xmas tunes from the 70s and 80s have a 50s rock n roll sound to them?

If i hear Do they know its Christmas or Last Christmas again i will poke my eardrums out with a yuletide log.. Naff.. Yea the sentiment of Band Aid is admirable but the song.. A bleeding dirge.. And as for Wham.. Get me a bucket.. My number one would have to be Driving home for Christmas.. Chris Rea’s gravelly vocals counterpointed by the cheerful lyrics and upbeat arrangement.. You can imagine him sat in his car with a bootload of pressies, singing along with a big grin on his face.. Coming home after a long stint gigging europe.. It hits me in the right place.. the heart everytime i hear it. Nice one Chris.

I think the reason is another one: Several of those Christmas songs are from the glam era, when making Christmas songs was kind of trendy and all of the big acts (more or less) did it. At the same time, there was also a nostalgia wave, maybe because the kids who grew up in the 70s were listening to their parents’ 50s rock’n’roll records, I dunno. Several of the most popular “boy bands” of the early 70s relied heavily on covers of pre-Beatles material. Donny Osmond, for instance – I think virtually all of his solo singles were 50s covers.

Later you would also have acts such as Darts and Showaddywaddy, ending up with Stray Cats and Shakin’ Stevens in the early 80s before people were definitely finished with the 50s once and for all.

That being said, “Lonely This Christmas” has more in common with Elvis’ early 60s MOR incarnation than his 50s rock’n’roll one.

I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed Showaddywaddy’s ‘Hey Mr. Christmas’ on the Xmas Top of the Pops 2. Maybe I should investigate this 70s mock’n’roll genre further… On the other hand, perhaps life is too short! Am I missing out on anything good?

To lord sukråt about the postpunk rock’n’roll revival: I am unsure whether it is easy lumping Shakin’ Stevens and Stray Cats in the same box at all. But we may get back to that when Tom does his piece on “This Ole House” in a couple of years or something 🙂

Shakin’ Stevens was so long paying his dues before becoming a pop star that he really predates the first UK RnR revival wave, let alone the second. Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets started out in the 60s!

“Lonely This Christmas” for me is a classic Christmas song as it works on a number of levels. There’s a line in “The History Boys” that I can’t quite remember – no doubt someone can help – about schoolboys being too young to appreciate some of the emotions portrayed in literature. Similarly, at age 12 I hadn’t loved and lost anyone, hadn’t lost a close family member and had no reference point to the subject of the song, but still found it moving and still do now that I’ve had those experiences. This from a band who performed it on TOTP with Les Gray singing to a ventriloquist’s dummy of himself while other band members pour washing powder over him from the top of a stepladder. To be able to play it for laughs and still move people, that’s a rare thing.

BTW, not only did it deny “Wombling Merry Christmas” top slot, it denied Bachman Turner Overdrive’s poptastic meisterwerk its due recognition as well!

In 1974 I thought Mud were hilariously great and their TOTP “Lonely This Christmas” routine side-splitting.

Then I heard it again, all over the place, in Christmas 2001 and suddenly I loathed and despised them for making a joke out of it since I was living (if you could call it “living”) through it.

These days I think it was a double bluff; the comedy used as a mask for an extremely grim and bleak song (“when we were here”).

Elvis, incidentally, was also riding high in the charts at the same time with his lachrymose rendition of the Martin/Coulter weepie “My Boy” though really the song needs Richard Harris’ deliberate overkill.

Showaddywaddy and Shaky I’ll talk about when we come to them.

The official “industry chart” at the time was a Top 50, though Radio 1 only used the Top 30 – they didn’t expand to 40 until May 1978 when the full chart was lengthened to a Top 75. If you subscribed to Music Week, though (as my dad did), you were also supplied with an unfeasibly long “bubbling under” list which basically comprised all the climbers between 51-100.

No, TOTP changed over to the 40 in May ’78 at the same time.

AFAIK that info isn’t available online or in print. It would be nice if someone could compile it in book form since on a 1974 level alone it would bring whole shoals of other records into the reckoning, from Junior Byles’ “Curly Locks” to John Cale’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Afford To Orgy.”

One wasn’t lonely this Christmas in the slightest and one has never heard this song, but surely the best lonely Christmas song (aside from Elvis’s “Blue Christmas”) is Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” from the Phil Spector Christmas album. I finally broke down and bought a (used) copy this year. (Disdain for Spector as a person always conflicts with admiration for Spector the producer.) Before I left on my holiday adventures, I burned a CD copy for my hairdresser. He couldn’t have been more thrilled.

I have the 7″ of that one! (OK I bought it at a record fair not long ago. But still.)

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. This song resonates with me primarily because it soundtracked one of my first ’embarrassing moments with members of the opposite sex’ type incidents. 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. Enter the cruel & mocking tones of Les Gray whereupon I decided, in my wisdom, to sing-a-long with the record. 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. 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. A tumbleweed moment followed after which I hastily retreated to the comfort of the school bar. 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. All that aside, I loved Mud and at this stage they could pretty much do no wrong. 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. You don’t see too many bands use the dummy routine nowadays do you ?

I really enjoyed reading this post. ‘Lonely This Christmas’ is a mainstay of festive songs. Amidst the wonder of the Turkey and the Roast Potatoes, another popular British dish around Christmas time is cheese. No more so than when Mud unleashed this prime cheddar on an unsuspecting public. Christmas parties, office Christmas parties in particular, have not been the same since this muddy lot began a tug of war with our heart strings all those years ago.

(can’t believe I forgot this – only came up because there’s a few around the end of the answer to the question “What’s the only UK #1 that doesn’t include its own title in its lyrics, but is succeeded by a song whose title it does contain?” which came up in conversation at my work Christmas party)

re 36: Queen/ABBA combo ?

Don’t think I can go above 3/10 with this one.