Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about 

TOP 10 CHRISTMAS SONGS

10. ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ – John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Euphoric and scathing, as hopeful as it is resigned, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s definitive festive peace-on-earth song has transcended its original anti-Vietnam War purpose to become a Christmas stalwart.

9. ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ – Brenda Lee

Being Jewish, songwriter Johnny Marks didn’t celebrate Christmas, but in the ’40s and ’50s he wrote some of the greatest Christmas songs of all time. Among them are ‘Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer’, ‘I Heard The Bells of Christmas Day’, and this – an easy-on-the-ear rock ’n’ roll tune sung by a 13-year-old Brenda Lee, which really needs no introduction.

8. ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ – Band Aid

Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s 1984 reaction to the Ethiopian famine, with contributions from Phil Collins, Sting, Macca and Bono, was a publicity machine of epic proportions. It worked: ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ stayed at the top spot for five weeks, and was the biggest UK chart success of the decade. Put that all aside, and it’s also just a great (and surprisingly unconventional) pop song.

7. ‘Christmas Wrapping’ – The Waitresses

If you love new wave bands like Blondie and Talking Heads, this is surely the Christmas song for you. It begins cynically with singer Patty Donahue declaring ‘I think I’ll miss this one this year’, before an unexpected romance blossoms in the closing stages and warms her jaded cockles. As festive tunes go, this one’s as dry and delicious as champagne paid for by your boss. 

6. ‘Fairytale of New York’ – The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

When was the last time you properly listened to Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues’ epic Big Apple-set fable? Shut your eyes and give it a go, and if you aren’t a nervous wreck by the fade-out, your heart (like that jumper from your nan) is two sizes too small. ‘Fairytale…’ is a perfect four-minute narrative of hope, despair and heartbreak – and, despite the profanity, it ends with love. 

5. ‘White Christmas’ – Bing Crosby

The power of Christmas nostalgia itself is greater than real memories. Hence, all of us can hark back with Bing on this Irving Berlin-penned ’40s number to a white Christmas just like the ones we used to know, even if our true past is full of crushing disappointments (December 25, 1993 – no Hornby train set). 

4. ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ – Darlene Love

Is this the most moving Christmas tune of all time? Probably – the combination of Darlene Love’s impeccable pleading vocal, Phil Spector’s gloriously tinselly production and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry’s magical songwriting could make anyone, even the biggest Scrooge, melt like a snowman under a hairdryer. It’s just an absolutely perfect Christmas song.

3. ‘Last Christmas’ – Wham!

A ballad of doomed romance, ‘Last Christmas’ features sleighbells and synths, plus some truly memorable knitwear in the video. But what really sets ‘Last Christmas’ apart is George Michael’s heart-on-sleeve delivery: his genuine heartbreak horror (‘My God! I thought you were someone to rely on’) and wistful, sexy whispers. The words ‘Merry Christmas’ never sounded so sultry. 

2. ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ – Mariah Carey

If there’s one good thing to come out of 2020 it’s that, after 26 years, Mariah Carey’s Christmas classic has finally made it to Number One on the UK charts. Narrowly beating Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ (which, incidentally, has also never made it to Number One), it’s a feat that feels deserved – especially since this absolute festive belter has re-entered the Top 40 every year since 2007. It’s a song that has helped earn Carey the moniker of the ‘Queen of Christmas’ (soz Mrs Claus), something she seems to take very seriously with numerous Christmas tours and television specials, the latest of which made its way to Apple TV+. Looks like after all these years, the people of the UK have finally said to Mariah: ‘All we want for Christmas is you.’

1. ‘Stay Another Day’ – East 17

East 17’s all-time Christmas classic wasn’t supposed to be a Christmas song at all. As the Walthamstow group’s songwriting member Tony Mortimer told us recently, it’s actually an incredibly sad song inspired by his brother’s suicide. That raw emotion seems to seep into the group’s gorgeously sombre four-part harmonies and even the inevitable Christmas song sleigh bells, producing a peerless exercise in festive melancholy. 

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking