Christmas Songs Countdown: #10

It's a rare thing for me to put a Queen number so low down on any music based list, but at number 10 it must go.

Thank God It's Christmas is Queen's foray into the world of festive singles. It was released during the Christmas period of 1984 and spent six weeks in the UK charts, peaking at number 21. Personally, it doesn't feature high on either my favourite Christmas songs or favourite Queen songs lists, but it's not actually bad. I think my main issues with it are that it's a bit too serious for me. I like my Christmas songs (on the whole) to focus on the eating, drinking, being merry and and falling out with the family that are for me the defining features of a good Christmas. This song has a feeling of "Bleedin' 'eck, I'm knackered, thank Bob Christmas is here so I can have a lie down." I'm all for that, and I'll be having a very thorough and determined lie down next week, but it doesn't make for a popular seasonal party favourite.

It was written by Brian and Roger* and wasn't blessed with a promotional video which may go some way to explaining its lesser-known status. It wasn't included as an album track on any of the studio albums, but was released as a b-side to Made In Heaven's A Winter's Tale and later made it on to the Queen+ Greatest Hits III compilation.

O.k, go on; Here's A Winter's Tale too: The video's from Queen: The Films, a video of films commissioned by Queen and filmed in conjunction with the British Film Institute shortly after Freddie's death.

* I like to pretend we're on first-name terms.