The greatest un-Christmassy Christmas number ones.
“Eeeeets Chreeestmaaaaas!” hollered a gravel-gargling Noddy Holder back in 1973. His roar booted off the devastating tradition of the novelty Christmas single — a custom that would go on to haunt us, like a Dickensian ghost, for years to come.
We all thought we’d bottomed out with the Dadaist Mr Blobby in 1993, but the 2000s have seen us plunge deeper still. Deep down into the murky depths of X Factor finalist singles.
I don’t want to wee on your crackling festive fire by taking you through lots of terrible Christmas songs though. No. Instead, I’m going to pick the best NON-Christmassy number ones. Quality songs that are festive solely due to the season they happened to top the charts.
Not every Christmas was ruined by James Arthur and John Lewis, you know.
Grab a mince pie. We’re going in.
Pet Shop Boys: Always On My Mind (1987)
Arguably one of the greatest cover versions ever recorded. Tennant and Lowe’s electronic rework of the Presley classic achieves genius status by changing the chord progression ever so slightly to give it that haunting edge.
Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (1975, 1991)
In many ways Bohemian Rhapsody is the ultimate Christmas number one, having topped the festive charts not once but twice. Yet we’re still more likely to think of Wayne’s World than the Queen’s speech when we hear it.
Whitney Houston: I Will Always Love You (1992)
Go on, I know we briefly covered this song last week, but I couldn’t miss it out. Despite a very snowy video, this song has managed to free itself from any Christmas association.
Because it’s Whitney, people. It’s Whitney. Her voice alone is enough to shake the tinsel off your tree.
Flying Pickets: Only You (1983)
This stripped-back cover of Yazoo’s Only You ended up being even more successful than the original. It’s lovely.
There’s something magical about acapella singing at Christmas-time — the similarly sparse Caravan of Love by the Housemartins narrowly missed out on the top spot just a couple of years later. Imagine chucking these two in with your Christmas carol singing repertoire! I think it would be ace.
Rage Against The Machine: Killing In The Name (2009)
You all know the story. But I still feel heartened every time I think about this act of resistance against the Syco stranglehold of X Factor Christmas number ones.
Rage Against The Machine embraced the campaign to keep Joe McElderry off the number one spot and donated all their royalties to Shelter. The charity ultimately received a cracking total of £162,713.03, which included £70,000 of downloader’s donations. The band also played a free concert in Finsbury Park to say thank you to the public.
All this and a bit of funk-metal thrown in for good measure? Now that’s what I call goodwill to all humankind.
Pink Floyd: Another Brick In The Wall (Pt. II) (1979)
Finally. Nothing says yuletide like the second part of a prog rock opera, am I right? Loathed by Thatcher, Pink Floyd’s only UK number one is a visceral takedown of rigid schooling, with its famous refrain: “We don’t need no education/ we don’t need no thought control.”
While certainly not a traditional Christmas song, the track does feature a school choir singing backing.
Nobody has ever proven if it went on to inspire the following year’s Christmas number one, There’s No-one Quite Like Grandma by the St Winifred’s school choir. If you ask me, the coincidence is surely too strong to ignore.
Hi, I’m Penny and I wrote this post as part of the #write52 project. You can follow #write52 on Twitter, or sign up for the newsletter on the #write52 website. If you love lesser-known Christmas songs I can also highly recommend the #write52 Christmas playlist, which is right here.
I’m Penny Brazier, a freelance writer, content strategist and Christmas song grinch. Find me trying to be pithy on Twitter or writing long captions on Instagram.
