What is a 70’s kid’s favourite sport on Television? – Wombledon! Time for a new post!
Pictured: Cover Art for “Wombling Merry Christmas” (Single) (Re-Released in 2011) (via Dramatico)
Crikey – I really couldn’t think of anything else! Not to worry, because it’s now time for me to get typing up all about today’s track on the blog, because it’s my day-to-day pleasure to help you discover a different piece of music every day! In timely fashion, since today marks the first day in which you’re allowed to open the first door of your advent calendar, we’re going to take a look at “Wombling Merry Christmas”, a festive novelty hit from 1974. For those unaware, The Wombles was a children’s television series run by BBC in the 1970’s, which was based on a series of children’s books written by Elisabeth Bereford, and it was centered on a set of pointy-nosed creatures that lived underground and recycled human rubbish. It sounds pretty trash on paper, pun intended, but it was very popular and influential at the time. Naturally, the producers of the show decided to get a group of people to dress up as The Wombles and appear on an episode of Top Of The Pops in November of 1974 to kick-start a campaign for “Wombling Merry Christmas”, a novelty single released on CBS Records, to reach the #1 spot of the UK Singles Chart that year. It nearly did so, reaching the #2 spot, losing only to Mud’s “Lonely This Christmas”. This was actually only their first attempt at it, because the track was re-recorded in 2011, with a new music video, in an effort to reach the same goal of a Christmas #1 hit in the UK Singles Chart. It fared much worse, however, I think the reason being that The Wombles were too old of a property for the new generation of youngsters, who are typically the age market who consume the most music, especially via streaming platforms. The track was released in West Germany too, yet it failed to chart. Let’s watch The Wombles perform it below.
It’s tricky to understand that it exists. This is coming from a 22-year-old who has no real experience of seeing The Wombles on television, but I’m vaguely familiar of their existence due to some early memories. You’ve got to remember that it was actually a decent commercial success, even though my research tells me that the critics mostly mocked it during its original release, for reasons that seem pretty clear. That never stopped them from performing a short set – including this track – at the Glastonbury Festival in 2011, however. It was later compiled onto the LP, “Keep On Wombling”, which was surprisingly the group’s third album release as The Wombles. “Merry Wombling Christmas” could be described as a care-free tune for the seasonal time, with the lead erm… Womble singing upbeat pop lines like: “Open your eyes/Look to the skies/When you are lonely” and “Under the ground/There is the sound of a symphony” over the top of a 70’s-centric guitar riff that evokes the contemporary Pop culture of it’s time. The comparisons to The Kinks and The Beatles are measurable, and the hook comes through at a brisk pace, as “All day, we will be Wombling in the snow” and “We wish you a Wombling Merry Christmas” comes through with an uplifting mood, before a saxophone solo provides a brief respite from the Boyband-ish vocals. I wouldn’t say that the melodies are particularly Christmassy, and I don’t think the hook is really that catchy, but it’s a fun case of something random existing and the instrumentation is varied enough for it to not get tiresome. We’re obviously not meant to take it too seriously, and it’s cheesy fun. I could argue that it’s novelty diminishes the credibility of the arts, but I’m too busy Wombling along to feel the need to get too harsh on it. It doesn’t really take the trash out of it’s opposition since there’s not very much to it musically, but I still wish you a Wombling Merry Christmas!
Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Keep On Wombling” (Released in December, 1974) (via CBS Records)
Thank you for checking out today’s Christmas-themed blog post – I’ve got more to come later this week! As always, you can join me again tomorrow – Where we will be looking at something more serious, but it’s still quite light-hearted. The track comes from a new French Synth-Punk group who are still in their 20’s, and they have just released their debut album on the Un Plain Simple label imprint of Sony Music. The trio have supported Blossoms on a European Tour. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/
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