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How did 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses become a UK Christmad perennial?

Started by ajsmith, December 12, 2015, 07:21:12 PM

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ajsmith

Great song, but always seems a weird one to me. It only got to no. 45 on original release, and it's by a fairly obscure US new wave band with no UK profile otherwise. Anyone know the factors that led it to becoming a mainstay of the classic British Christmas?

non capisco

At least it says Christmas in it. And The Spice Girls covered it in their pomp.

I love the bare faced cheek of those 'not actually' Christmas songs that still get played in supermarkets and rake in the royalties every year. 'The Power Of Love', Frankie Goes To Hollywood. No mention of Christmas in the lyrics unless The Hooded Claw is revered as a festive figure in Norway or somewhere. Whack a manger in the video, job done, money every December. East 17, 'Stay Another Day'. Same deal, bog standard ballad but with sleigh bells at the end! Not even real snow in the video! Gentlemen, I applaud you.

Famous Mortimer

Best guess, it was cheap and got on one of those Christmas compilations as a space filler? I think that's where I first heard it, now I think about it.

Brundle-Fly

During a BBC tv recording a couple of years ago, after a long night, the desperate warm up comedian asked members of the flagging, dying for a piss audience what their favourite Xmas pop hit was. This lone punter piped up with the aforementioned Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses.

The comedian claimed that he'd never heard of it and asked anybody in the studio to sing it. Obviously, nobody offered to do this.

Cunt comic sarcastically added, "Well, that obviously soared up the charts.... Hey, who always got a mouldy satsuma , a green Quality Street triangle and a crap Pocketeer game in their Xmas stocking?"

DrGreggles

I first became aware of it in the early-to-mid 90s when I was working in a record shop and there was a Christmas CD on constant rotation.
The Spice Girls version would have been 2 or 3 years after that, but that's a relatively obscure cover - by their standards at the time anyway.

CaledonianGonzo


Mark Steels Stockbroker

I first heard it when John Peel played it in the early 90s. It was in the same show as the Festive Fifty, and he did a comment about this #45 single having bigger chart success than most of the records he would be reading out in the countdown. Think he did that 2 years running.

steveh

It was first on the ZE records "A Christmas Record" album in 1981 and then on the back of Kid Creole finding success in the UK in 1982 the label began pushing their other acts in the UK and released the album and single here. However, as a US indie I think ZE was too small to capitalise properly on the radio plays the song was getting, especially at a time of year when the majors got out all their firepower for their biggest acts. So it remained a radio hit and built over the years through its inclusion on Christmas compilations. It's probably down to a couple of DJs or radio producers that it got plays - I remember Capital at the time playing it a lot.

There's some more about it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20131029191926/http://ecentral.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/12/22/music/20051222113008&sec=music

doppelkorn

I first heard it when my sister downloaded it from Kazaa in the early 00s when she would have been about 13. Christ knows how she knew about it. I don't think it was the Spice Girls connection.

buzby

Quote from: steveh on December 13, 2015, 09:06:32 AM
It was first on the ZE records "A Christmas Record" album in 1981 and then on the back of Kid Creole finding success in the UK in 1982 the label began pushing their other acts in the UK and released the album and single here. However, as a US indie I think ZE was too small to capitalise properly on the radio plays the song was getting.

Both "A Christmas Record" and the "Christmas Wrapping" single (a split 7" with Charlelie Couture's "Christmas Fever", also from the album) were released on Island in the UK (Chris Blackwell was a friend of one of the founder's girlfriends at the time, which led to the licencing deal with ZE for the UK). The original 1981 release charted for 1 week at #71. The 1982 re-release of the single (solely as The Waitresses) again entered at #71 but stayed for 4 weeks, peaking at #45.

I assume the relationship with Island/PolyGram/UMG made it easy to licence the track for compilations (quite a few of which were put out by Polygram themselves - they own the recording of Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody').

23 Daves

I definitely heard it quite a bit in the early eighties, but that might have been helped by the fact that my brother loved Kid Creole and The Coconuts and a few other Ze related things - so how much of it was down to radio airplay or what my brother had on in his car over the Yuletide, I've no idea. Fairly sure that (as one other poster has already pointed out) Capital Radio loved it, though. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it sold more in the London area than elsewhere as a result.

Still, there's no doubt that it was never a huge deal until quite recently.

A lot of Christmas tracks which are quite obscure are starting to pick up play in odd places, I've found. I suspect that people just want to vary their playlists a little bit each year. I've heard XTC's "Thanks For Christmas" being played in supermarkets quite recently, and that was an absolute, utter sales stiff of a single - but if you're going to create huge long Christmas radio shows consisting solely of modern Christmas pop tunes for your customers, you're probably going to have to dig around a bit now and then and take a few risks.

steveh

Ah, I didn't know Island were putting out ZE in the UK - though I guess The Waitresses were never going to be on the list of priority acts at Xmas.

The thing of pop records being hits in only certain parts of the country has pretty much disappeared now. Wonder what the last example was.

Jockice

I preferred I Know What Boys Like. I also have an autographed copy of Kid Creole And The Coconuts' Tropical Gangsters. Any offers?

Petey Pate

I remember hearing it in a shop in Reading a couple years ago and thinking "this is good... for a Christmas pop song".

Maybe I shouldn't be too shocked if I hear The Fall's We Wish You a Protein Christmas being played in Tescos next year.

daf


momatt

Dunno, it's pretty good though.  Great bass-playing.
I first heard it on Cassetteboy's Christmas mix.  He fucked it right up!



Thomas

I love it. Just put it on, forgot how much I love it.

As a festive hit, it is second only to the cynical lyrics and powerful vocal melodies of Greg Lake's 'I Believe in Father Christmas', and followed closely by 'Stop the Cavalry' and 'Sexual Christmas Time'.