Wonderland Burlesque's The 12 Days Before Xmas: Merry Xmas Everybody

Wonderland Burlesque's

The 12 Days Before Xmas: 

Merry Xmas Everybody

The 9th Day Before Xmas

This is a UK holiday favorite that wouldn't have been, if not for the uncanny memory of one band member!

Merry Xmas Everybody is a song by Slade. Written by lead vocalist Noddy Holder and bassist Jim Lea, it was released as a non-album single in 1973. At the time, Slade was one of the most popular bands in the UK, having achieved two #1 singles (Cum On Feel The Noize and Skweeze Me Pleeze Me) in a mere three months. It was produced by their manager, Chas Chandler, who'd suggested the band write and record a Christmas song. Initially, the other band members were opposed, but Lea started to warm to the idea... while taking a shower! 

As he told Record Mirror in 1984:

"Nod had written the chorus of it in 1967. In those days it was all flower power and Sgt. Pepper and Nod had written this tune. The verse was naff, but then he came to the chorus and went 'Buy me a rocking chair to watch the world go by, buy me a looking glass, I'll look you in the eye' - very Sgt. Pepper. I don't use tape recorders, I just remember everything and if something's been written 10 or 15 years ago, it stays up there in my head. I never forgot that chorus, and I was in the shower in America somewhere thinking: Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan. And suddenly out came 'are you hanging up the stocking on the wall' and I thought that'll go with that chorus Nod did in '67. So I rang Nod and said what about doing a Christmas song and he said alright, so I played it to him and that was it."

It would turn out to be the band's sixth (and final) #1 in the UK. Since then, the song has become a perennial favorite, re-charting in the UK each holiday season.

Deck the halls, and whatever you wish, dears. 

Cheers!

-uptonking from Wonderland Burlesque

Merry Christmas Everybody - Slade