The LabourList team pick their Christmas karaoke choices

Christmas is just around the corner, and everyone knows one of the best things about the festive season is the songs. That’s why LabourList will be hosting a special karaoke party on Tuesday night (December 9th). Come along, be merry and, whether it’s Sinatra or Slade, belt out your favourite Yuletide tune.

You can see full details of the event on the Facebook page here.

To get you in the mood, the LabourList team have written about their choices:

Conor Pope – ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ by Darlene Love

I’ve always been confident that had I not ended up blogging about contemporary Labour politics, I could have been a 1960s Tamla Motown singer – probably more popular in the later northern soul era Wigan dancehalls than during the initial . Indeed, people who have heard me sing ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ have described my voice as “unique – not at all like how Otis Redding sings it”.

That’s why I’ve picked ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’. Since Darlene Love first sang it in 1963, it has become a Christmas staple. With its upbeat melody and downbeat lyrics (“If there was a way/I’d hold back this tear/But it’s Christmas day”), it has been covered by likes of Michael Buble, Deacon Blue and Steps. It’s time to add my name to that venerable list.

Maya Goodfellow – Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

Forget Mariah Carey’s saccharine tones, as she pretends all she wants for Christmas is the love of another human being; or the patronising message of Band Aid’s ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’, the answer to that question is, yes, ‘they’ probably do. Nothing says Christmas like Shane MacGowan – who was, incidentally, born on 25th December so presumably understands this holiday better than most of us – slurring the opening lyrics to Fairytale of New York.

Written in 1980s London about a vision of 1940s New York, it’s the only Christmas song that I think has got it all (if we ignore some of the extremely offensive terms used). Melancholic piano alongside folksy celtic rhythms, despair alongside hope, and a reminder that most of us are united in our mediocrity (although there’s a moment of real optimism when we realise McGowan hasn’t stolen MacColl’s dreams but is just ‘keeping them’ with his…). Honestly, what else could you ask for?

And if you too enjoy basking in the contradictions of this classic, you might also want to take a listen to this for an ounce of festive realism, albeit the ironic kind…

Here’s the suitable for work version:

Mark Ferguson – ‘The Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth’ by Bing Crosby & David Bowie

In 1977, David Bowie was living in West Berlin. Five years on from Ziggy Stardust, and post-Thin White Duke, Bowie had just released Heroes. In an unusual twist he was invited to take part in a Bing Crosby Christmas Special (filmed, as these things are, in late summer). Bowie agreed because his mother liked Crosby and he was “actively trying to normalise his career”.

Crosby, who may or may not have known who Bowie was, thought he was a “clean-cut kid and a real fine asset to the show”. Had Bing known more about Bowie’s escapades, “clean-cut” might not have been the words he’d have used.

After some painfully stilted scripted dialogue about someone called “Sir Percival”, the two men arrive at the piano to sing. The song? Little Drummer Boy.

It should be just as awful and awkward as the rest of the scene, but it’s fantastic. Their two voices combine to create more than the sum of their parts. A couple of times Bowie’s voice begins to try and dominate (singing the specially adapted “peace on earth” lyrics and melody that are now synonymous with the song” but Crosby more than holds his own.

Only five weeks later Crosby was dead. “Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas” aired six weeks after Crosby’s death, and the song struck a chord. They’d only practised together for an hour, but they’d created a Christmas hit that still resonates decades later. Here’s the song – and the banter – from 1977:

What’s your Christmas karaoke choice? Come along on Tuesday from 7pm and let us hear it! Full details here.