Music

Advent Calendar #16: Slade – ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’

Holding up the philosophy that Christmas music should not only be festive, but diverse, Impact has compiled a list of 25 ‘Christmas songs’ to take you through advent. Including not only songs which are indisputably part of the Christmas canon, but also straying into areas of music which holds looser links to the season. Starting with the tenuous and heading for the recognised classics, look no further for your advent soundtrack.

As soon as the organ kicks in and a raucous Noddy Holder asks ‘Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall?’, you know it’s Christmas. Personally, it can’t be the festive season without Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, which is the epitome of what Christmas should be about – family and fun – but expressed with guitars. This is how the Old School did a yuletide rock song, and it hasn’t been bettered yet.

It’s the perfect mixture of a celebration of the season (‘Are you waiting for the family to arrive?’) and a bit of cheekiness (‘What will your daddy do when he sees your mama kissing Santa Claus?’). We sorely need a modern group to give us a track like this one. In any case, Slade’s cracker of a tune is now an integral part of the sounds of the season. Merry Christmas everybody.

Alex Nicholson

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