For 50 years, I have wanted to write a Christmas song.

Now, you may think that’s a bit of a strange obsession unless, like me, you were born in the UK in the late 50s or early 60s.

Because if you were, you would know that the 1970s were a golden age for Christmas music in Britain, and my generation was simply steeped in it. Like so much pop music in the UK at that time, the December pop charts that decade incorporated many different genres. And the variety of Christmas sentiments they conveyed ran the gamut, from the sacred to the profane, from the serious to the silly, from the tearjerkingly sad to the drunkenly exuberant. Such musical diversity perfectly matched the wide-ranging emotions the season invokes. Not incidentally, the music of the 70s —Christmas music included — helped instill in me an expansive musical taste that has remained with me to this day.

Don’t believe me? Consider this timeline and these songs:

1970

• “Winter Song” by Lindisfarne. The song was never released as a single but was recognized years later as one of the greatest songs ever, according to Elvis Costello. Whether or not that’s true is a matter of opinion, of course. But it’s certainly been a perennial favorite of mine since I first heard it all those many years ago.

1972

• “Merry Xmas (War is Over)” by John & Yoko/The Plastic Ono Band. A “political message with a touch of honey,” as Lennon put it, the song reached number 4 a year after being released in the US.

1973

• “Gaudete” by Steeleye Span. As unlikely a hit as you’ll ever get, this a capella version of a sixteenth century Latin Christmas carol by a folk rock band peaked at number 14 in the UK charts.  
• “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” by Wizzard. An over-the-top piece of Phil Spector-inspired seasonal fun which rose to number 4.
• “Step Into Christmas” by Elton John. Decidedly lightweight, but it still managed to get as high as number 24.
• “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade. The unforgettable 300-pound gorilla of British Christmas songs, it claimed the number 1 spot at the end of that year. Now, 50 years on, it seems everyone in Britain still knows all the words. Legally, I believe Christmas cannot officially begin there until Noddy screams, “It’s Chrisssssssssmaaaaaaaaaasssssss!”

1974

• “Lonely This Christmas” by Mud. The greatest Elvis Presley song The King never recorded, this kitschy rock ‘n’ roll revival classic reached number 1 on December 25 that year.

1975

• “I Believe in Father Christmas” by Greg Lake. The song made number 2 that Christmas only because it couldn’t budge some lightweight, forgettable song named “Bohemian Rhapsody” off the top of the charts.
• “In Dulci Jubilo” by Mike Oldfield. Another unlikely hit, this instrumental version of yet another medieval carol peaked at number 4.
• “A Spaceman Came Travelling” by Chris DeBurgh. The song did not chart, but it continues, like the others, to get seasonal airplay on British radio to this day.

1976

• “Ring Out, Solstice Bells” by Jethro Tull. A quintessential English folk rock song — in 7/4 time no less — the song peaked at number 25.

1977

• “Father Christmas” by The Kinks. Deliciously cynical and unseasonably violent with a brilliant moral twist at the end, unbelievably the song never charted despite that killer Dave Davies guitar intro.

1979

• “December Will Be Magic Again” by Kate Bush. A beautifully ethereal offering from my teenage crush to see out the 70s, the song made it to number 29 and was on the charts for almost 2 months.

And just outside the decade, there was the heartbreakingly sublime “2000 Miles” by The Pretenders (1983) and “Fairytale of New York,” (The Pogues, featuring Kirsty MacColl, 1987), which is not just a great Christmas song, but for me, quite simply one of the greatest songs of all time.

(You can find most of these songs and more on my Cool Yule Spotify playlist, versions of which have been a staple in the Pegg household every Christmas since the kids were little).

As much I loved this music as a listener, as a songwriter, I was stymied in my attempts to create a song for the holiday. The bar those 70s Christmas songs established was simply too high for me to even consider surmounting. Try as I might, my ideas throughout the years fell unbelievably short of their brilliance. My ideas came out too preachy, too lightweight. They simply didn’t match up, musically or conceptually. Every September from my early twenties onward, the idea crossed my mind to write something for the upcoming holiday. By October, the idea always vanished like leaves off a tree.

Until the evening of December 19, 2023.