We live in troubled times and the sentiment expressed by John Lennon in this song is equally relevant today. Back then, Lennon was appealing to American citizens who had more power to end America’s war in Vietnam than we do in the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere. Nonetheless, it seemed apt to finish this year’s calendar with this appeal for an end to war.

The Beatles had split up in 1969 and John Lennon was the first band member to release a Christmas song thereafter.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono had been peace activists against the Vietnam war beginning with their famous ‘bed-ins in March and May 1969. Prior to this song they had rented billboards in 12 major cities worldwide and released black and white posters saying “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It – Happy Christmas from John & Yoko”.

Because of the criticism of the Vietnam war contained in the song, the US government tried unsuccessfully for the next three years to deport Lennon from the USA although Lennon had moved to New York with the intention of staying.

John is reputed to have found much Christmas music overly sentimental and was apparently fed up with perpetually hearing ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’, but more than that, this song was a way to continue the message projected in the previous posters; one of ‘social unity and peaceful change via personal accountability’ (1). He also wanted to convey a sense of optimism and said, having learned a lot from the success of ‘Imagine’:”Now I understand what you have to do: Put your political message across with a little honey.”

It is deemed that the music for this song was based on another song about a horse dating as far back as the late 18th century called Skewball, or, as it was called in the many versions it was given during the 20th century, Stewball. I have listened to that song and there are some rhythmical and melodic similarities but Happy Xmas, has a whole identity of its own.

John Lennon recorded an acoustic guitar demo of the song in late October 1971 at the St Regis hotel in New York where he and Yoko were staying. Days later, having moved into an apartment in Greenwich Village, he went into a recording studio and recorded another demo and got Phil Spector to produce the song. Because there was subsequently a very short lead time to Christmas when the song was released as a single in the USA on Dec 1st 1971, the song did not have the time to generate sales to make it do as well as might have been expected.

After a publishing rights dispute between Lennon and Northern Records it was then released in the UK on 24th November 1972 (still with a short lead time to Christmas) where it reached no 4 in the charts, contending with Lennon’s own iconic song, ‘Imagine’. The song subsequently appeared on the album called Shaved Fish released in 1975.

At the beginning of the recording, John and Yoko can be heard giving Christmas greetings to their children by previous partners, Anthony Cox and Cynthia Powell: (Happy Christmas, Kyoko, Happy Christmas, Julian) but we have omitted this. The original recording includes backing from the Harlem Community Choir but we have omitted them, too!

Today’s release has been a very close shave as, apart from Dave recording the acoustic guitar yesterday, we only started recording the rest today (Christmas Eve) and were still recording until about 9.30pm this evening, but I have faith in Dave to get it out to you in time, none the less.

Dave: It was Danielle’s idea to make this into a vocal track. I told her I had a somewhat harder act to follow singing John Lennon’s part than she did singing Yoko’s! My vocal cords are appallingly out of practice, so I can only send my heartfelt apologies to the great man.

So with this song, we close our Advent calendar for this year, but thank you all for listening and reading and huge thanks to Anna, Tim and Dave for the phenomenal work which they put into it. We sincerely pray for peace among ALL nations and send to all of you our friends our love and warmest wishes for this Christmas and the New Year to come.