{"id":15530,"date":"2018-12-25T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/?p=15530"},"modified":"2018-12-20T15:04:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T15:04:03","slug":"the-story-behind-the-festive-hit-merry-christmas-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/the-story-behind-the-festive-hit-merry-christmas-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind the festive hit &#8216;Merry Christmas Everyone&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">Shakin&#8217; Stevens has revealed the process that went into making what has become a Christmas classic dusted off every December, the hit &#8216;Merry Christmas Everyone&#8217;.<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Shakin&#039; Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone (Official Video) [Directors Cut]\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZeyHl1tQeaQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2018\/dec\/18\/how-we-made-shakin-stevens-merry-christmas-everyone\">interview with the Guardian<\/a> Shakin&#8217; Stevens reveals how everything fell into place when he heard the song and felt it needed to be a Christmas song. Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2018\/dec\/18\/how-we-made-shakin-stevens-merry-christmas-everyone\">the Guardian<\/a> Stevens said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I always thought it would be nice to have a Christmas No 1 \u2013 if nobody remembers you for the rest of the year, they\u2019ll remember you at Christmas. Bob Heatlie wrote the song especially for me and I thought it had all the ingredients for a\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/christmas\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Christmas<\/a>\u00a0single: festive lyrics, bells, the lot. I listened to it and I could picture snow.<\/p>\n<p>In those days, pop on TV was mostly kids\u2019 programmes and Top of the Pops, so we made a video at\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/go.theguardian.com\/?id=114047X1572903&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tripadvisor.co.uk%2FShowUserReviews-g230092-d215297-r423264820-Santaworld-Mora_Dalarna_County.html&amp;sref=https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2018\/dec\/18\/how-we-made-shakin-stevens-merry-christmas-everyone\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Santaworld in Sweden<\/a>. The young girl starring in it had won a competition to go to Lapland. My son was one of the kids in the log cabin full of toys. Making it was such fun. The Santa was an actor \u2013 you\u2019d see him in the canteen having a cigarette and a sherry and he couldn\u2019t get his \u2019tache off. Because it wasn\u2019t snowing, we had to hire snow machines. It was the same when I did the video for\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zNfKxxbfZ1E\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">It\u2019s Raining<\/a>: we used rain machines and I ended up absolutely soaked.<\/p>\n<p>I thought the song deserved to be No 1 and didn\u2019t want it to be a No 2, but in 1984, Band Aid released\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bjQzJAKxTrE\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Do They Know It\u2019s Christmas?<\/a>\u00a0There was no way we could compete with such a high-profile charity single, so we held our song back for a year.<\/p>\n<p>The Radio 1 \u201csleighlist\u201d \u2013 the Christmas playlist \u2013 only lasted three weeks then, so you didn\u2019t have long to get to No 1. Merry Christmas Everyone went from 38 to 10, then 2, and then it hit the top spot, by which time the rereleased Band Aid single was at No 3. I\u2019m thrilled that people still play our song every year. It\u2019s nice to be part of Christmas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2018\/dec\/18\/how-we-made-shakin-stevens-merry-christmas-everyone\"><strong>Read the full interview including songwriter Bob Heatlie&#8217;s side of the tale at the Guardian.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shakin&#8217; Stevens has revealed the process that went into making what has become a Christmas classic dusted off every December, the hit &#8216;Merry Christmas Everyone&#8217;. In an interview with the Guardian Shakin&#8217; Stevens reveals how everything fell into place when he heard the song and felt it needed to be a Christmas song. Speaking to the Guardian Stevens said: I always thought it would be nice to have a Christmas No 1 \u2013 if nobody remembers you for the rest of the year, they\u2019ll remember you at Christmas. Bob Heatlie wrote the song especially for me and I thought it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":15531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":[],"categories":[8614],"tags":[2051,2023,2052,1548,10471,10470,465,2053],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.4.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The story behind the festive hit &#039;Merry Christmas Everyone&#039; - RouteNote Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shakin&#039; Stevens has revealed the process that went into making what has become a Christmas classic dusted off every December, the hit &#039;Merry Christmas Everyone&#039;.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/the-story-behind-the-festive-hit-merry-christmas-everyone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The story behind the festive hit &#039;Merry Christmas Everyone&#039; - 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