The IAM Christmas Playlist 2020
We’re taking a few days off now but could not do so without first sharing with you the tunes will be singing along to over the festive break. Each member of the IAM editorial team has chosen their top five Christmas songs. For different reasons, they all mean something special and each one comes with an explanation as to why.
Here’s wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas. We’ll be back again on 28th December. Ho, ho, ho!
Bridget Diakun, Data reporter
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John
My brother got a record player one year for Christmas and he played this album, a lot. Now it’s hard not to enjoy a cold winter’s day without this tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDOL7iY8kfo
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
A great song from one of my favourite Christmas movies, Home Alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3HJgCcSUqQ
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Is there a better holiday song? I don’t know how she did it, but this is the best Christmas pump up music around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXQViqx6GMY
I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas – Bing Crosby
A classic that I like to play in the run up to the big day, as there really is nothing better than a snowy morning on Christmas Day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVI4cE9PPo
Baby It’s Cold Outside – Idina Menzel & Michael Bublé
I couldn’t not include Michael Bublé on this list and this is a great version of the original. A warm drink is optional.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bbuBubZ1yE
Adam Houldsworth, Life sciences reporter
Salvation Army Band playing carols and hymns
Because of covid-19 restrictions, something I have really missed this year in the run up to Christmas is seeing Salvation Army brass bands playing in the streets of London. I enjoy brass bands. I love carols and hymns. And something about a Salvation Army Band captures the essence of Christmas. This year, I will have to listen to a recorded version instead!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTMGvDj-zxo
Elvis Presley – Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me
I will be listening to plenty of Elvis Presley over the festive period, not least because my father-in-law’s Christmas compilation tape (I think it’s actually a CD) contains at least half a dozen Elvis tracks. This one is a particular favourite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWTGgCiVEv0
Manic Street Preachers – Last Christmas
This is my favourite version of the George Michael classic. Less cheesy than the original, it has a heartfelt quality and a great melody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16CRyfqwdg
Bing Crosby – White Christmas
It wouldn’t be Christmas without this track. There are many classic Christmas songs, but this may be the most iconic. Best enjoyed sat beside the tree, with a log fire crackling in the corner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ibhWgMlso
Peter Auty – Walking in the Air (from The Snowman)
This stirs up childhood memories. Played on British television most years, the song and animation evoke the bleak beauty of a Northern European Christmas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upH1QZU4Z0Y
Richard Lloyd, Editor
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas - Perry Como
Marrying an American and then moving to the US has given me a whole new appreciation for the Christmas tracks from a collection of the leading crooners from the 1950s and 1960s, and this one is at the top of the list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmddeUJJEuU
The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
See above – best enjoyed with a warming glass of red wine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwacxSnc4tI
Happy Xmas (War is Over) - John Lennon
Not in the same crooner vein as the first two, but just a very special Christmas track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flA5ndOyZbI
O Come All Ye Faithful - The Choir of King’s College Cambridge
I can’t say I’m a big fan of choral music but growing up, carols from the Choir of King’s College Cambridge was always part of the Christmas soundtrack at home, so I’ll include this one for a bit of nostalgia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLIdT8DFI0
The Liquidator - Harry J Allstars
This track is very much not a festive song, but football has always been an important part of Christmas for me, which means trips to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea. So, with apologies to our Tottenham-supporting editor-in-chief, this somewhat obscure track, which the Blues walk out onto the pitch to, has to be on the list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUSqKe5JGk4&list=RDEUSqKe5JGk4&start_radio=1&t=40
Jacob Schindler, Asia-Pacific editor
I’ll start off with two soul Christmas classics from 1968... “Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto” by James Brown…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aur9gLzsXQU
… and Clarence Carter’s “Back Door Santa”, both fixtures on my Christmas party playlists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0NoalRsk5w
Shifting gear a bit - and remembering one of the greats we lost to covid-19 this year - I’ve been listening to John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQaJn11t94M
This is a great blues piano accompaniment to a Christmas Eve nightcap, and as far as I know the only Christmas song to mention my home state – Tom Waits’ “Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7erAbC521M
Finally, I’ll end with a montage of Darlene Love singing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on the David Letterman show over the years – an annual tradition that I miss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7erAbC521M
Joff Wild, Editor-in-chief
The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic
It’s not a Christmas song, but it is sung with deep faith and profound beauty in one of the everyday languages spoken in the land of Christ’s birth at the time of his birth. It is a deep link to our past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=961ihcx4PoQ
Gaudete – Steeleye Span
A very traditional Christmas carol which I particularly like because it is the only song in Latin ever to make the UK top 20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSL9uomqVCo
Merry Christmas Everybody – Slade
This came out when I was nine years old. It takes me back to all my 1970s Christmases: the lights, the decorations, the excitement, the presents; all the sweets I was never usually allowed. Whenever I hear it, I’m a kid again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpfHSqLXePI
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
The Pogues were a brilliant band: Irish folk punk made in London. With Kirsty MacColl they created a timeless classic. This is every Christmas Eve of my youth in the pubs of Archway and Camden Town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8
Stay Another Day – E17
The UK Christmas Number One in 1994. This one takes me back to all the Christmases we had with our three kids when they were young. They were days to treasure. It’s actually a pretty good song, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNhdjoF-6M&list=RD-wNhdjoF-6M&start_radio=1&t=0
Bing Zhao, China editor
River - Joni Mitchell
This does not mean that I enjoy a very blue Christmas or tend to get depressed over the holiday season. But it does portray an exotic landscape with a sad tinge: “Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on …”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NH-ctddY9o
Christmas Lights - Coldplay
The song starts sadly with a beautiful and almost sweet piano intro, then gradually develops to a very optimistic and joyful end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1rYmzQ8C9Q
You raise me up - Josh Groban
This song was introduced to me during my first actual Christmas Eve in a suburb of Connecticut, when I was a newly arrived Chinese student in the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJxrX42WcjQ
Come away with me - Norah Jones
Jones’s voice is very pleasant and soothing, and it’s a thoroughly peaceful song about a romantic escape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbjZPFBD6JU
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Ella Fitzgerald
A very warm and slightly melancholic melody sings out joy of the holiday, hope and also nostalgia for the past.