Advent Calendar 2024

As a songwriting team, Lynsey de Paul and Barry Blue certainly knew how to produce chart gold. For example, they wrote Sugar Me, de Paul's 1972 breakthrough single, and also collaborated on Blue's (Dancing) On A Saturday Night, a number 2 UK hit for him in 1973. But when teaming up as a duo to record a Christmas song, the magic just wasn't there, at least not commercially – it was a complete no-show on the charts.

Released in November 1975, perhaps Happy Christmas To You From Me came too late: by that time – except for de Paul's 1977 Eurovision duet with Mike Moran, Rock Bottom – both Blue and de Paul had already appeared on the UK charts for the last time. There's an entire page about the song on Wikipedia, which dutifully notes all the positive reviews the single gained, and also claims that it's still often heard on UK radio in the holiday season. That may be true, but it's not available on Spotify, nor as a digital download. I guess part of its limited success is that it lacks the forceful singalong chorus heard in 1970s Christmas classics by acts such as Slade and Wizzard, despite the best efforts of the children's choir. Through repeated listening I've come to kind of like it, though.

As an aside, ABBA fans, do you think Agnetha was a little inspired by Sugar Me when she wrote and recorded Golliwog/Gulleplutt?

Listen to Happy Christmas To You From Me.

Not available on Spotify, but the link takes you to the playlist for this year's Advent Calendar, where you can listen to the other selections so far.

The Spotify playlist for all the previous Advent Calendars is here. Note: The playlist is incomplete, as some of my calendar selections are just too obscure for Spotify.