12 December 2023 , 18:39
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One of the biggest festive hits of all time began life as a “hippy-trippy” song about a rocking chair until it was transformed by a
bottle of Christmas spirit.
Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody shot to number one at Christmas 1973, and half a century later still dominates the festive airwaves. It generates an estimated £500,000 in royalties every year and is credited with starting the phenomenon of the race to be Christmas No1.
And it all came about because of a boozy night in the Midlands home of frontman Noddy Holder’s parents. Noddy, 77, said: “The song that became Merry Xmas Everybody was written in 1967. It was a hippy-trippy thing and the chorus went: ‘So won’t you buy me a rocking chair to watch the world go by / Buy me a looking glass to look me in the eye-eye-eye...’
Noddy Holder has revealed how he wrote Merry Xmas Everybody (Getty Images)
The song is still a festive hit (PA)“One night in 1973, I was staying at my parents’ in the Midlands after a few drinks down the local pub. The whisky bottle came out when I got in and I rewrote that earlier song in two hours, using the same music for the chorus but changing the words and adding verses.”
Slade were given the idea of writing a perennial Christmas song by the aunt of bass player Jim Lea. The song’s lyrics conjure up Christmas in a typical British home – but they were recorded in the corridor of a New York skyscraper on a hot summer’s day. Noddy added: “I wanted it to paint a picture of a typical working-class Christmas – you know, granny getting up and having a dance and worrying about how much room there is with all the relatives around.
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The song has a sprinkling of festive spirit (Redferns)“We cut it in the US at the end of the hot summer of 1973. The studio was in an office block and we sang the chorus in the stairwell next to the studio to get that echoey effect. our English blokes singing about Christmas... they must have thought we were mad!”
Noddy recalled co-writer Jimmy Lea was unsure about the finished product, but manager Chas Chandler knew he had a hit on his hands. Record company Polydor had to use its French pressing plant to keep up with the demand for the single, which sold a million copies in its first week. It went straight in at the top of the charts on December 15 and stayed there for five weeks.
Thanks to music streaming, Merry Xmas Everybody has re-entered the top 100 every year since 2006, and currently sits at number 39. In 2009, royalties body PRS for Music estimated 42% of the world’s population had heard the song. It has been covered by acts including Oasis, Steps and Tony Christie.
Noddy told M, the members’ magazine of PRS for Music: “We knew we had a big hit when we wrote it, but for it to be still going strong so many years later... well, we never imagined.”