New Christmas Songs

Each year it's fun to track down and discover new Christmas songs, often covers of old or traditional songs, but occasionally, a real new 'un!

A few years ago I added, 'I'm Going Home' with David Essex on vocals and various stars of Christmas hits in the '70s playing and singing along (including Dave and Don from SLADE, of course). A couple of years ago I discovered Sufjan Steven's Christmas box and Leigh Nash and her Christmas ep, particularly her lovely 'Maybe This Christmas'. I also discovered Martha Wainwright's 'Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year'. Last year my big find was 'Christmas Eve in Fairy Land' by Gracie Field - that song just tickles my Christmas bone.

This year has seen a bumper crop of Christmas songs headed by the punktastic 'City Of Christmas Ghosts' by Goldblade and the mighty Poly Styrene (those 'la, la la-las' get me every time). If only it was released in hard cd copy then that's what everyone would get for Christmas from this particular Santa.

Other finds include:

~ 'It's Christmas Time', another new one, this time by Status Quo with their familiar chug chug guitar boogie and random Christmas sentiments;

~ 'Ghost Of Christmas' by the Manic Street Preachers which sounds exactly like you'd imagine it would, and definitely in the spirit of SLADE's classic 'Merry Christmas Everybody';

~ 'A Christmas Duel' by The Hives & Cyndi Lauper, another new 'un, which is worth it for Cyndi's opening line alone;

~ 'Warm This Winter' by Gabriella Cilmi which is actually from her album released earlier this year but which is perfect for a Christmas song;

~ 'Father Christmas' by the Kinks - how on earth have I missed this one over the years and why isn't it on every Christmas compilation album? It's not your standard 'isn't Christmas fun' song, but it's got some great sentiments in it about the loss of the spirit of Christmas.

A couple of oddities I've found are 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas' by Coldplay (the only track by Coldplay in my library) and 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' by Death Cab For Cutie. I haven't heard the Killers new song yet, with Elton and Neil Tennant, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

One of my favourites is another new song, 'Still This Love Goes On' by Buffy Sainte-Marie. It's not a Christmas song at all but it conjours up images of snowy-frosty mornings and roaring fires and jingle dancers, and, with Buffy's haunting voice, that's enough for me.

Amanda Palmer should do a Christmas song - I bet it would be fab and she'd do a great video for it as well. C'mon Amanda - what're you waiting for?

I'll keep looking for new Christmas songs so watch this space...