The Xmas Factor: The Secret of Slade's Festive Phenomenon

As a seasonal treat we present a special muso appreciation of the classic Merry Xmas Everybody, chosen by musicradar voters as the third best christmas song of all time

musicradar christmas feature

Few would disagree that it is the most iconic though!

Along with Turkey, plum pudding and mince pies, Merry Xmas Everybody has been an essential Yuletide institution ever since its 1973 release. But just what is the secret to the relentless staying power of Slade's Christmas cracker (recorded, ironically, in the summer that year at the Record Plant in New York)?

Beyond the anthemic lyrics mixing a universally hopeful message ("look to the future") with colourfully quaint images (Santa, sledges, stockings, "your granny"), the music itself reveals touches of compositional genius that withstand the repeated listening that, every December, we cannot avoid.
Let's take a suitably self-indulgent tour of some of the song's harmonic, melodic and rhythmic highlights.

The Intro's Tonal Tease (0.01-0.07)
The opening bars remind us of Slade's love of descending basslines, with what appears to be a simple 8-7-6-5 drop down the Bb major scale being consistent with Cum On Feel The Noize (8-7-6 in G) and Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me (8-7-6-5 in E).
But as the bass continues to fall a further semitone to D (at 0.04), it soon transpires that the listener is being primed for a cheeky key change from Bb to the impending verse key of G. Sure enough, that hanging D chord is soon understood as the dominant V of G – with the harmonium highlighting the 3rd degree (the F# at 0.06) that acts as a leading tone by resolving an effortless semitone higher to its new tonal home of G at the start of the verse.

The Pure Pop Verse (0.08-0.23)
No huge surprises in this 8-bar section that showcases a four-chord cycle that follows a famous formula in the key of G. The sequence is an implied I-vi-iii-V, tried-and-tested on such previous pop classics as The Beatles' She Loves You (verse in G) and David Bowie's Starman (chorus in F); and lives on today in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Turn Into (C) and The Courteneers' No You Didn't, No You Don't (A).
Nevertheless, the use of the mediant iii chord (the Bm on "stocking on the") is a colourful touch, supporting a tense F# melodic pitch now in a descending context, while ensuring the progression avoids the cliché of the far more common I-vi-ii-V and I-vi-IV-V.
Notice, too, the unusual melodic rhythm of this four-bar phrase, with the first three chords crammed into two bars and the dominant D enjoying two full bars of its own. This structure, along with the cool guitar embellishments that enter in verse 2, cleverly disguise the predictability and familiarity of the sequence.