Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number One

I spent what I could of today listening to my Xmas playlist and choosing something appropriate for the number one slot. There were a few contenders and if I was writing this on a different day, it might easily have been a different result.

Compiling a list like this has really helped me to define what I like in an Xmas tune. I particularly like genre takes on classics. I have developed a strong taste for military style snare-heavy drumbeats. And you can’t go wrong with a pretentious Latin title and a bonkers angelic inspiration. 

Number One: In Dulci Jubilo by Mike Oldfield

I feel an extra appreciation for this work of genius is added by being able to view Pan's People's dance interpretation from 1975's Top of the Pops. My Xmas gift to you all.

The tune’s history is pretty interesting too. I recommend listening to a choral arrangement such as this one by the choir at King’s College and you’ll hear Pearsall's partly English translation of the words and music that dates from the 14th Century.

German Mystic Heinrich Seuse wrote down the music he heard angels singing in a vision brought on by mortification  - an extreme religious practice for which Heinrich Seuse  invented and wore underpants studded with 150 inward facing brass nails. They really knew how to get close to God in the 14th Century. 

The underpant craze remained a niche practice, but the song really caught on. JS Bach loved the song so much that he wrote a prelude for organ (JBV729).

You might think that such a distinguished musical pedigree might put off the average prog rock studio musician, but Mike Oldfield realised that there was a banging tune hiding in In Dulce Jubilo  - it just needed speeding up and the addition of two slightly stifled electric guitars and some snare drums.

Well, this has been a gas, can’t believe that I have managed to write all eight of these before Xmas! It's kept me sane whilst also writing hundreds of near identical corporate Christmas messages for my day job writing the internet. 

Thanks to everyone who’s got involved and joined in the comments and shared their favourite Xmas tunes and their opinions on my choices. I hope the list has provoked thought more than it has disappointed.

Happy Xmas everyone!

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 2

Some songs happen to have been popular at Xmastime, but have little discernible Xmas content or theme: Here in the UK, East 17's Stay Another Day is a case in point - sleigh bells notwithstanding. My mum, who has been following this countdown closely, keeps messaging me to remind me of the existence of David Essex’s A Winter's Tale (which I can exclusively reveal has not made the number one spot). Even Jingle Bells is pretty heavy on the delights of winter equestrianism and light on any actual Xmas references.

Because Xmas music is a fuzzy category, there are plenty of songs that can be in or out of the set depending on who’s making the distinctions. 

When I worked as a bartender, back in the days of CDs, we had the Best of the Pogues album behind the bar. Inevitably, if ever the familiar piano chords of the opening track would start to play, you could guarantee some member of the public would pipe up: “Why are you playing Christmas music in July?” But for me, A Fairytale of New York is a Xmas song that is not just for Xmas - it’s great all year round. 

But Fairytale of New York is not the Pogues’ best Xmas song. That honour goes to…

Number 2: Dark Streets of London by the Pogues

“Now the winter comes down, I can't stand the chill

That comes to the streets around Christmastime.

I'm buggered to damnation and I haven't got a penny

To wander the dark streets of London.”

Honourable mention should go to Thousands Are Sailing which is frequently my favourite Pogues track and includes the line "...from rooms that daylight never sees, where lights don't glow on Christmas trees..." I feel like Shane Macgowan really had a handle on Xmas lyrically and wasn't afraid to reference it in unexpected places, including songs about failed relationships, troubled souls feeling lonely in capital cities, and the Irish immigrant experience in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Have I missed any Pogues Christmas references? Let me know in the comments here or on Facebook.

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 3

In the minimal research that I conduct to lend this blog an air of credibility, I read that this song only reached number 40 in the UK charts. It has only become familiar because it is used as filler on so many Xmas Hits records, CDs and… er… festive countdowns.

Chris de Burgh may be best remembered for his saccharine ballads about rubbing cheeks with scarlet clad ladies, but we’re here to celebrate the strand of bonkers religiosity hiding in that falsetto croon. Spanish Train - in which the Devil outwits God by cheating at games of poker and chess over which they have wagered the souls of the dead - was a favourite of mine as a child. But this is a festive countdown so today’s song can only be:

Number 3: A Spaceman Came Travelling by Chris de Burgh

In my view, A Spaceman Came Travelling is a song in three parts:

Part One is the set-up: a grade one reimagining of the Nativity story in which the star that guides shepherd folk and wise men to Bethlehem is not a star at all but an alien spacecraft bearing a message for mankind to hear. This is brilliantly Christmassy - if there’s one Christmas song element that we are fans of here at the Finnginn blog, it’s reimaginings of the Nativity story. We love it when songwriters are like: The Greatest Story Ever Told? Nah, it would be better if it went like this...

Part Two is a bit of a letdown as the spaceman reveals that his message is:

“...blah blah blah blah, la-la, blah blah blah blah…” 

Lyrically, it’s like Chris thought, ‘I’ll write that bit later’ and then never did.

But the song is redeemed in Part Three when the stranger/spaceman character departs leaving only the cryptic hint that:

“...when 2000 years of your time has gone by,

 this song will begin once again…” 

That’s right! The twist is that you’re not listening to a Chris de Burgh festive pop song at all - you are actually hearing the interstellar music of the angel-being that blessed the birth of Jesus! 

It’s this incredible hubris that earns A Spaceman Came Travelling a prominent place in my Christmas playlist.

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 4

I’m slightly behind schedule on these. Looks like I’ve got to publish one on most of the days left between now and Xmas otherwise I will be breaking my own rule that Xmas music should only be listened to during Advent and on Xmas day itself.

The Kinks have long been a favourite band of mine. They had a string of hit singles in the 1960s: starting with two - You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night - that kind of invented the chord-heavy riff metal sound before completely abandoning it in pursuit of a character-led almost theatrical style of music.

Many of the 1970s Kinks albums are overly-long single-concept albums that play out like stage plays. They took to touring with a full brass section and their stage shows featured actors and multiple costume changes. Record sales dwindled until they reinvented themselves as a stadium act in the 1980s, drawing on their huge back catalogue to play just the hits to packed crowds.

At the peak of their late 1970s unpopularity. They released a Christmas song:

Number 4: Father Christmas by the Kinks

The christmassy glockenspiel intro gives way to a trademark Dave Davies guitar peel. Lead singer Ray Davies sings the song from the perspective of a mall santa who tells the story of a time he was mugged by a gang of children who taunt him with the central refrain:

“Father Christmas, give us some money

Don't mess around with those silly toys

We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over

We want your bread so don't make us annoyed.

Give all the toys to the little rich boys!”

In 1977, pipe bands not glockenspiels were the Christmas music theme du jour, so Paul McCartney’s ode to his estate in the Scottish lowlands, Mull of Kintyre got the number one spot. This Kinks song failed to chart. 

What are your favourite forgotten Christmas anthems? Let me know in the comments below or on Facebook.

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 5

Christina Aguilera and I are about the same age (she’s actually like six weeks older than me). Fascinatingly, we both also have a four octave vocal range… only kidding… in reality, the similarities end at the age thing. 

Despite our similar ages, our paths hadn’t crossed. She never invites me to her birthday parties - so I don’t invite her to my traditional birthday curry night at Spice Paradise (meeting at the King’s Head at 7 for food at 8 if you’re free, Christina) either. Maybe because Christina’s birthday is so close to Christmas is the reason that she hates Christmas so much?

My evidence for Christina Aguilera’s hatred of Christmas is the worst Christmas album I’ve suffered through in all my research for this festive countdown. My Kind of Christmas was released in 2000. An album so keen to put that four octave vocal range to the test that the producers decided to make every syllable 17 notes long. Even a duet with Dr John can’t save it.

My Kind of Christmas’ only redeeming feature is a bizarre interlude - Xtina's Xmas - that sounds like it was produced by a Sixth Former who, whilst doing work experience at a studio had stumbled across the record company executive’s stash of Colombian talcum powder and then been let loose at the mixing desk.

Maybe My Kind of Christmas is your kind of Christmas. But after listening to that, I needed a good blast of a track that just weeps Christmas spirit from its pores...

Number 5: Gaudete by Steeleye Span

In the house I grew up in, Steeleye Span used to play whilst the children opened their stockings on Christmas morning. But if ever a song was recorded to be played during the lighting and presentation of the Christmas Pudding, surely this is it?

(For my international readers: the traditional British Christmas Pudding is made of dried fruit, nuts, spices and kidney fat soaked in brandy for four weeks, then dressed with a sprig of holly, doused in more brandy and set on fire.)

Gaudete! Gaudete! Christus est natus!

Ex Maria virgine! Gaudete!

[Rejoice all! Rejoice all! Christ is born!

Outside of the virgin Mary! Rejoice all!] 

(trans. author’s own)

Feel free to share with me your favourite latin Christmas songs. Drop them in the comments here or on Facebook.

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 6

My annual YouTube Music listening statistics came through and, once again, I am in the top 2% of Bob Dylan listeners globally - in 2022, I listened to 371 minutes of Bob Dylan. If that puts me in the top 2%, y’all aren’t listening to enough Dylan.

But even we super-Dylan listeners find our fingers hovering over the ‘skip song’ button when his rasping ineffectual rendition of Do You Hear What I Hear? from 2009’s Christmas in the Heart starts playing.

Do You Hear What I Hear? has been covered many times since it was written by two musicians (Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne) during October 1962. You heard me correctly - Regney and Shayne came up with their choral masterpiece during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Knowing that they thought the world was ending, makes the song’s central message all the more poignant.

Plot-wise not much is going on in Do You Hear What I Hear? Essentially, various protagonists (Night Wind, Little Lamb, Shepherd Boy, Mighty King) share various aspects of the Nativity story until the Mighty King proclaims peace and goodwill to the people everywhere. 

This is in stark contrast to the actual Nativity story, in which you will recall that the Mighty King on hearing the news of Christ’s birth orders the slaughter of all boys under 2 years of age in the entire kingdom. (Matt 2:16)

I’ve listened to this song a lot this week. And I can tell you that it turns out that Dylan’s cover is far from the worst. That honour goes to the Jessie J and Mary J Blige version some mixes of which last a full 5 and a half minutes! They linger so long on presenting the Christ-child with silver and gold that I started to doubt Jessie J’s earlier protestations that it was not about the money money money and the ba-bling ba-bling. 

William Becket has a version that I first encoutered on an album called Punk goes Christmas that manages to achieve a sound that is neither punky nor Christmassy.

So what am I looking for in my search for the perfect rendition of Do You Hear What I Hear? The song benefits from being tight. The original recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale is magical and only 3 minutes long. Mahalia Jackson belts it out in just 2 minutes 20, but she chose a musical rather than vocal echo on the Do You Hear What I Hear? bits so she narrowly misses out to:

Number 6: Do You Hear What I Hear? by Andy Williams

From the prominent military snare drum to the sustained final note, Andy’s version has everything that we’re looking for. And is supported by a female choir doing the echoey bits and a male voice choir adding some baritone harmonies. Gradually, extra elements (including some Christmassy sounding tubular bells, and an orchestra and brass section) are introduced with the whole never becoming too bloated.

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,

“Do you hear what I hear?

(Do you hear what I hear?)”

Think you hate this song? There's a version for you out there somewhere. Share your favourites in the comments below or on Facebook. But forgive me if I listen to them next Xmas - I've kind of done this one to death this week in researching this blog!

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 7

Calypso music is unashamedly joyful music - so it’s a shoo-in for adding some sunshine to your Xmas playlist. And luckily Calypsonians love Xmas so there’s albums of the stuff out there to choose from. 

Calypso music is also unashamedly subversive music - stemming from the musical tradition of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean using call and response work songs to mock their slavemasters. 

Number 7: Father Christmas by Lord Kitchener

Lord Kitchener is referred to by Wikipedia as Lord Kitchener (calypsonian) to make sure nobody accidentally confuses the grandmaster of calypso for the moustachioed face staring out of the “Your Country Needs You!” First World War recruitment poster.

Be sure to check out his back catalogue. Lord Kitchener knows all the tricks in the calypso lyric handbook - sociopolitical commentary, humour, double-entendre, the experience of being black in a racist world - all set to beautiful calypso music which is a uniquely Trinidadian fusion of African beats and Latin-American rhythms. 

According to his obituary in the Guardian he arrived in England on the Empire Windrush in 1948 and stayed here for 14 years - opening a nightclub in Manchester. 

“Last night you said to me what I want for Christmas?

Darling, it’s nice to see you are so generous.

Well, boy, take it from me your offer is welcome:

Bring the wine, the whisky and the rum!”

Finnginn's Festive Countdown: Number 8

Confession time: I love Xmas music. I’m not ashamed to say that the first 7” single I ever owned was Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine and that at least 50% of the theme of that chorus-line plays an important part in my Xmas celebrations to this day. 

I have two ideas that I think would improve the whole Xmas music experience for everyone.

1. Xmas music should only be played during Advent and on Xmas Day itself.
2. We should all deviate from the standard playlist a bit more - let’s hear more Xmas deep cuts.

For those who love Xmas music as much as me, and for all the grinches who wish they could avoid stepping into last Christmas everyday, I present Finnginn’s Festive Countdown.

Number 8: It’s Always Christmas Time for Visa by The Austin Lounge Lizards. 

There can be few genres more divisive than comedy gospel bluegrass. Let’s just say it’s not for everyone. 

I first heard the Austin lounge Lizards when I was working as a campboy in the United States in the late 90s. A Texan guitar slinger called Uh…Clem used to sing a cover of their song Monkey on My Back (And It Looks Like You) round the campfire at the Cotopaxi Smokehouse. When I returned to England, he gave me as a parting gift a cassette tape that had their album Employee of the Month on one side and a live album by the Asylum Street Spankers on the other.   

In the years since, I have tracked down some other records of theirs. Not much of their back catalogue has made it to the digital era. Only about half of their 10 or so albums are on YouTube Music.

Luckily one of them includes this catchy seasonal reminder that the credit card companies are out to exploit you…

Altogether now:

It’s always Christmas time for Visa!

Mastercard gets presents every day!

Our interest rate just went

To 29 per cent

Even though we’ve never failed to pay.

I'm always looking to expand my Christmas playlist, please share your favourites in the comments below or on Facebook.

Of Time and CBeebies

Jean Paul Sartre opened La Nausée with the observation that 3 o'clock in the afternoon is too late or too early for anything that you want to do. I've not got a problem with 3pm. And I totally disagree that you can't do anything at 3pm. I can think of lots of things to do in Norwich at 3pm, and Norwich isn't exactly Paris.

Maybe Sartre's mates all had proper jobs and weren't available to head down to the Left Bank for a quick café noir and a natter about existentialism in the middle of the afternoon? But surely he could just pop to the library and find an autodidact to sneer at?

Now consider 4.30am, that is a time that is definitely either too late or too early for anything that you might want to do. Let me tell you. And I have become recently well-acquainted with that hour due to the clocks being regulated by some kind of governmental diktat and my younger son's body clock being regulated by his desire to spoon in a bowl of Weetabix drowned in blue top as soon as his tummy rumbles.

The collective insanity that causes us all to reverse the minute-hands of our clocks a full rotation at the end of October has always bothered me. I have an early memory of asking my Nana to explain how the Sun knew to rise at a different time.

Baked a lovely Cornish pasty, my Nana, and was also ready to explain the basics of celestial mechanics when called upon. It's hard work being a Nana.

Carers of young children will already be aware that before CBeebies proper starts it's colourful assault on the senses, you get half an hour or so of Little Daydreams - lots of slow motion bubble blowing and jumping in puddles - all narrated by 2019 Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia Colman. But even the makers of Little Daydreams know that 4:30am is too early for a little auditory tactile synaesthesia - so they schedule that to start at 5:30am.

If he's allowed to choose what to watch while I aimlessly scroll through Twitter to see which government ministers are likely to resign in the coming parliamentary session, Ginger will inevitably opt for something from  the 'blocks' Universe. These are 5 minute cartoons about personifications of abstract concepts that sing and dance. 

So far the BBC has adapted the following philosophical concepts for the small screen:

• phonemes ("alphablocks")
• integers ("numberblocks")
• qualia ("colourblocks")

I know what you're thinking - there's a clear gap in the market there for generative syntax ("grammarblocks"?)! But don't worry, I have written to the commissioning editor of CBeebies to suggest this for the next series. I've even written some suggested lyrics for the theme song:

Grammarblocks! Grammarblocks!

Combine syntactically!

Grammarblocks! Grammarblocks!

They make syntactic trees!

'S' is comprised (minimally)

Of one 'NP' and one 'VP'.

Modifiers, Adverbials

And don't forget Recursive Rules

For linguistic infinity!

Grammarblocks! Grammarblocks! (et cetera)

I've yet to hear back. Anyhow it's time for a nap before the 3pm school run - Did I mention that I've been awake since 4:30?

Clocks Photo credit: Lucian Alexe on Unsplash

Young Finnginn with Nana photo credit: my mum?

Bedtime Blues and Clerihews

My younger son - to avoid confusion with the elder (Finn Jr), I'll call Ginn Jr (or maybe, Ginger?) - is at an age where he is changing his preferred method of falling asleep.

Until recently, the best way of invoking a nap involved strapping him into either a pushchair or a car seat and expending either leg or diesel power to trundle him into the land of Nod.

However, I'd noticed that my evening walks pushing the buggy around the streets of Mile Cross were getting longer and longer and the end result less certain. Sometimes I would complete the whole extended podcast edition of In Our Time and, whilst my knowledge of the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would be satisfyingly increased, the little one would still be pushing the hood of the buggy back to get a better look at the people smoking outside Mecca Bingo.

I don't think we're in Mile Cross anymore...

I downloaded a step counting app to give myself an idea of how punishing these evening walks were becoming. The week when I twice recorded 19,000+ steps, I decided a new approach was needed.

I recalled a method of getting a child to sleep that had briefly worked with Finn Jr at a similar age. This is where I try waiting until he is really tired and lying down in the dark next to him and hoping like hell that he drops off before I do. 80% of the time, this works and I can transfer him to the cot and sneak downstairs for a rewarding glass of Côtes de Gascogne. The other 20%, my wife has to wake me up to tell me I've missed Only Connect.

In an attempt to stave off the inevitable wave of drowsiness that lying down in a darkened room brings on, I like to compose clerihews in my head. (I expect that you'll recall from this 2014 Finnginn blog post that clerihews are four line whimsical biographical poems that don't have to scan and follow an AABB rhyme scheme.)

A new crop of government ministers has revealed a rich harvest of names crying out to be Clerihewed (clerihewn?). Here are three that I have remembered long enough to write down:

Kwasi Kwarteng

Took up a pen

And wrote down a tax-and-spend policy

That wrote off the UK economy.

Suella Braverman

Do me a favour, man?!

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander:

Stick yourself on the next flight to Rwanda.

Goodbye, Liz Truss -

Gone by Christmas.

When Liz Truss sees the Christmas trees

She'll celebrate with a plate of imported cheese.

In the time I've taken to write and edit this, rumours have been circulating that Kwarteng has been sacked as Chancellor. You heard it here first!

In the interests of fairness, feel free to add your own clerihews about members of the shadow cabinet in the comments...

Notes on quitting smoking

Two years ago, perhaps a decade after the above photo was taken by my stepsister, I was convinced to give quitting tobacco a go - and I'm finally ready to talk about the experience.

There are two chief categories of ex-smoker that I encountered while bartending:

1. Those who secretly still love smoking - who will blag rollies off you when they are drunk and without their partner.
2. Those who apparently never really liked smoking in the first place and become vehement campaigners in the anti-tobacco lobby.

I think I am destined to be a category one ex-smoker. But here are my notes on quitting in case they are useful to anyone else thinking of sucking their final menthol tip.

The physical experience of quitting

Overcoming the physical addiction to nicotine has been made much easier by the invention of vaping. In the early days of quitting smoking, I was able to ease my cravings by vaping. Luckily, vaping is a thoroughly unpleasant experience and therefore much easier to stop.

When the battery was fully charged, the experience of vaping was like being at an amateur dramatics production of Macbeth when an over-eager stagehand gives the dry-ice machine full throttle. When the battery was low, the model I adopted was liable to malfunction and deposit a thin dribble of acidic vaping liquid into the mouth. 

I was able to give up vaping within a week (compare that to the smooth taste of delicious Golden Virginia, that had me hooked for a quarter century).

Some people seem to love vaping, so maybe I wasn't doing it right? Perhaps I lack the willpower to experiment with flavours and equipment to make it a proper habit. If so I might be the first person to give up nicotine through a lack of willpower?

The mental experience of quitting

I found it helpful to imagine there is a little compartment somewhere in the mind where you can put thoughts to ignore them. By definition, minds are mental phenomena, where the imaginary is real - so imagining like this is a feature that your mind possesses is sufficient to make it a feature that your mind possesses. Believing in your imaginary ignored memory compartment makes it real enough for our purposes.

Thus equipped, when your mind occasionally nudges: “Time for a lovely cigarette!”, you have a compartment ready to file away the thought. And you don't just have to use it for cigarette cravings - why not store your nagging regrets, resentments and anxieties in it too? Just make sure you seal it up really tight - don't want that lot leaking out on a random rainy Thursday hangover.

As you can see from this before and after, quitting smoking enables you to grow a fulsome moustache as you won't be setting fire to it trying to relight half-inch long rollies that have gone out. 

20/20 Hindsight, 10/20 Vision

I'm frequently distracted by the live feeds of unending crises. Since my last post here, we've had a Conservative election landslide, Brexit, global pandemic, war in Europe... and Liz Truss voted Prime Minister by a proportion of the electorate so small that I booked an appointment to get my eyesight checked at a local opticians' clinic just so I could see it. Turns out three years sat in a darkened room doomscrolling has left me a little myopic. 

An in-built desire to please/win makes me a terrible subject for eyetests. Five years ago, I went to a popular highstreet chain (that I'll just call GoggleGrafters). The optician conducting the tests did my good eye first. When he came to measure the problem eye, I remembered the sequence of letters and reeled them off perfectly.

This time I went to a friendly local independent clinic, the kind of place where they still make you a cup of tea while you're waiting to see the specialist, but also insist on you wearing a face mask so you're sort of left carrying a cup of tea around as the entropy in the room slowly increases. This optician had clearly met my type before - she did my bad eye first so I couldn't cheat.

One aspect of the examination not offered at GoggleGrafters (but thoughtfully included at my more recent test) was an explanation of my macular degeneration.

"Those bumps you can see on the right eye display are sun damage."

At some point in my childhood, I'd chosen to look at the sun and permanently damaged one of my eyes. I have no memory of this, but staring at the sun sounds like the sort of thing childhood me would have been sufficiently sensible and risk averse to attempt with just the one eye.

Once the lens strength appropriate for a solar-induced maculo-retinal deterioration had been determined, I was invited to inspect a selection of frames. 

"What did you have in mind?" 

I asked if they had something like the pair that Noam Chomsky wore for his 1971 debate on human nature with Michel Foucault. 

"What were you looking to spend?"

All that doomscrolling has left me with the distinct impression that there's a cost of living crisis on, so I hesitantly scribbled a suitably conservative (small-c) figure on a piece of paper.

"Ah... Perhaps you should have gone to GoggleGrafters?"

Header Photo by David Travis on Unsplash