Christmas Wrapping - the Waitresses

This 1981 Christmas number has a lot going for it. First, the music is top notch, making a quiet start and showing a good deal of variety throughout with excellent guitar, saxophone and vocal riffs, a tight horn section and even some jazz clarinet on the fade out. Then, Patty Donahue's throaty voice is very attractive and the lyrics full of interest as they relate the year long love story that happily resolves itself at Christmas time. It reminds me of one of those stories they used to have in my sister's Jackie magazine in the seventies. While being pretty specific in detail, it manages to capture the spirit of love at Christmas and the transformation from Christmas alone to Christmas with your new love is effectively done. The Christmas references are legion and the song even manages to open with the words "Bah humbug". The manifold repetion of "Merry Christmas" is also neatly done. Great stuff!

I believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake

This is one of my favourite Christmas pop songs. Not originally written as a Christmas song, there is a dispute between singer and writer (Peter Sinfield) over whether it is a protest against the over commercialisation of Christmas or a song about loss of innocence. It is certainly rather cynical as it describes growing up and learning that a white Christmas, peace on earth, Santa Claus and, as far as the writer is concerned, the Israelite too, are simply untrue. With such a large amount of cynicism, the song is in danger of collapsing under its own weight so a valiant effort is made to rally by wishing everyone a brave and hopeful Christmas, free from anguish and pain. Perhaps the strength of the song, however, is its ability to capture a traditional childhood Christmas in the west with references to "that Christmas tree smell", "eyes full of tinsel and fire" and "waking in the first light of dawn". The song has appeared in various guises but the best one is probably the original Greg Lake version of 1974, where the choir, sleigh bells, orchestra and drums all make their mark behind Lake's brilliant twelve string guitar, complete with harmonics. The use of the Troika from Prokofiev is no small part of the song's genius. Remaining optimistic in the midst of the reality of life is not easy. Jettisoning false beliefs and avoiding being naive is good but without hope, what is left to keep you going? Some of us do believe in the Israelite and that makes all the difference.

2000 Miles - The Pretenders

To its credit, the 1983 Pretenders single 2000 Miles does not immediately sound like a Christmas song, although there is a choir effect and some bell like instrumentation. It does mention the word Christmas more than once, however, along with snow and children, and seems to be dealing with one of the perennial Christmas issues - being separated from a loved one over the otherwise happiest of seasons. The song does not quite give it away, but it was apparently written in memory of founder member and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, who had died the previous June aged only 25. If this is so then the song is dealing with an even bigger perennial issue, bereavement at Christmas time. It offers no real solution but simply observes that the loved one is gone 2000 miles or whatever, which is indeed very far. Inevitably, the one left behind says "I miss you" as they think of the dead person wherever they go. Happiness goes on all around and the bereaved one even joins in to some extent but the nearest they get to seeing the one they would really like to see is in a dream. The snow works well as a metaphor as while diamonds sparkle in it, it does get colder rather than warmer in winter and there are frozen and silent nights. A slow number, full of wonderfully jangling guitars, it somehow manages to sound optimistic despite the loss.

Tubthumping - Chumbawamba

Tubthumping, sometimes known as "I get knocked down", which is the leading lyric, is by the anarchist punk musical collective Chumbawamba. An album track, it was released as a single that came out in 1997. It charted highly not only in the UK but also in the US, Australia and Italy. It is difficult to be sure exactly what it is about, if anything, but it is all in there - a good tune or set of tunes; a football anthem chorus ("We'll be singing when we're winning"); a pleasant girl singer; a nice beat; little jokes (Danny Boy, Danny Boy); some classical music (Jeremiah Clarke's Prince of Denmark's March and the trumpet voluntary on what sounds like a trumpet); a controversial word easily altered for radio airplay; a positive message with an underlying tone of sadness, etc. Some have found the song annoying but for pop music, it is pretty good stuff. The lyrics are so minimalist you can make what you like of them (another useful quality in successful pop songs) and the band has changed them from time to time as they have espoused different causes. The album version of the song opens with a sample of a monologue performed by Pete Postlethwaite in the 1996 film "Brassed off": "Truth is, I thought it mattered; I thought that music mattered. But does it bollocks! Not compared to how people matter." There are various remixes and covers.

The Night Sky - Keane

Keane's distinctive is their use of keyboards rather than guitars, though the keyboards sometimes sound like guitars. This 2006 charity single for War Child is a heavily reverbed, nostalgic but subtly belligerent track that moves at a slow measured pace with very piano-like keyboard accompaniment. The song was composed by pianist Tim Rice-Oxley and is written from the perspective of a child caught up in war. We begin with nostalgia - "One day I will be back in our old street safe from the noise (ie of bombs) that's falling around me". We then move to the manifesto, which involves releasing the town "from the people (ie the warring factions) who are trying to knock it down". This will lead to a regeneration. The town will be returned to a previous utopian state where "only city lights will brighten the night sky and there will be no sound" or, to be exact, sounds not of bombs and artillery but of people going about their business in bars, markets, banks and (gratifyingly) churches. More nostalgia marks the later lines about longing to "stand at the bus stop"; "browse in a bookshop" or "sleep and always be still". The longing is to "be set free from the people who are trying to bury me". The final lines are powerful - "And then only fireworks will light the sky at night for all the world can see". Of course, the song offers no solutions. There is no suggestion of how all this can be achieved. It is all someone else's fault and because this is a war child speaking we cannot object. This is merely an innocent longing for peace, a longing that we can all identify with, whether we have lived through war or not. A pleasant tune, fine vocals and lyrics that are intriguing enough to provoke interest make it an excellent modern pop song.

Friday on my mind - The Easybeats

Considered by some the best popular song to come out of Australia, the Easybeats' 1966 hit Friday on my mind has been covered many times. It is a pop triumph. Drawing on the sixties beat scene, it shows (middle) eastern and jazz influences too. The guitars are great, as are the vocals. The use of the minor key for the week days ("Monday morning feels so bad ... Tuesday I feel better ... Wednesday just won't go, Thursday goes too slow, I've got Friday on my mind") then the rising, quickening beat for Friday ("Gonna have fun in the city, Be with my girl, she's so pretty, She looks fine tonight, She is outta sight to me") works well. The lyrics are dire in places ("Even my old man looks good ... Tonight I'll get mad, Tomorrow I'll be glad, 'Cause I've got Friday on my mind") but work as a unit, evoking youthful working class longings for the weekend very well. Of course, the song ends with a fade because the weekly high can only provide a cyclical thrill at best and is ultimately a dead end. Something higher than "Thank God it's Friday" is needed. It is epitomised in the contrasting Christian week, which has no weekend but begins each Lord's Day with worship and thankfulness for the resurrection, as the believer moves inexorably toward an eternal Sabbath Day of joy.

Can you dig it? - The Mock Turtles

This track shows just how far you can go in popular music with a good guitar riff properly laid down (something the song originally lacked when first recorded, apparently). As so often in popular music, the lyrics are totally inconsequential. Again, that may be because the title came before the song - it is apparently a line from the controversial 1979 film The Warriors (based on a 1965 novel by Sol Yurick). The whole thing probably took no time at all to write, although the recording may have taken a little longer. The Fat Boy Slim and Simon Thornton remix came out in 2003 (the original was a 1991 production)  and shows evidence of a lot of tinkering. The one bit of noticable inventiveness is the way the backing ceases at the beginning of the chorus and during the striking phrase "someone turned the light on". Although you could not listen to this too many times back to back without getting a little bored, it certainly makes you want to move.

The Outlaw - Larry Norman

This attractive piece is in the finger picking folk style with a brief instrumental break on electric guitar. It is a song about Jesus Christ and his message. The title is well chosen, especially for its time (1972) when there was a lot of interest in outlaws and other western heroes and anti-heroes (eg Alias Smith and Jones). The title the Politician, Poet, Sorcerer or Son of God would have much less impact. The first four verses cleverly give alternative understandings of Jesus that are ultimately rejected yet contain seeds of truth. This is especially true of the opening verse describing him as an outlaw who "roamed across the land with a band of unschooled ruffians and few old [poetic licence here] fishermen". It continues "No one knew just where he came from, or exactly what he'd done, but they said it must be something bad that kept him on the run". Even in the other verses we have references to his popularity, miracles, parables, opposition to corruption, fearlessness, unfair crucifixion and message of new birth. Few short songs include so many Bible allusions. So, even before the final verse a lot of ground has been covered. That final verse speaks of him as '"the Son of God, a man above all men" who came to be servant "and to set us free from sin" which is what Norman himself believed. The argument "that's who I believe he is 'cause that's what I believe" is circular, unhelpful and guaranteed to convince no-one. The dispensationalist emphasis on the Second Coming is also unwelcome to some of us but accounts perhaps for the song's fitting yet ultimately egregiously abrupt ending.

My Brother Jake - Free

My favourite popular song of all time is a 1971 single by the British band Free called "My brother Jake". It reached number 4 in most charts. I'm not really sure how I came to hear it first or why I like it so much. It's not because of any fond memories or conscious identification with the words at all. It certainly has an excellent delivery from Paul Rogers on vocals, excellent piano and guitar work, judicious use of mellotrons, etc, yet nothing that makes it an obviously great song. Perhaps the key is the way it builds - often a very important element in popular song. Each time you hear it you start off liking it, if you are anything like me, and then you are carried along by the song so that by the end of it, you feel something of an emotional high, which is one of the most obvious things that popular songs have to offer. The repeated "Jake, Jake, Jake, don't you wait, wait, wait" is especially effective. I usually sing along and often get the words wrong, which doesn't matter too much. Pertinently, many of us find our head is often "in a daze" I guess and sometimes perhaps your head is "down, it's a scrapin' the ground" and perhaps subliminally the idea of your candle burning as "the wheels of time are turning" towards an infinite eternity gets to you and I think of "changin' my ways" and how one might "give a whole lotta people some ... soul". Some songs are easier to analyse than others.