I wondered if I’d ever get this song out (in more ways than one), but here is my first-ever Christmas “single” 🙂

“My Own Song For Christmas” is a bit of a send-up of the BBC’s annual schoolchildren’s festive songwriting competition, which used to run as part of “Pebble Mill At One” (and its successor programmes) from the 1970s through to the early-1990s, and which is chiefly remembered for giving Gary Barlow his first big break (at 15, he was a semi-finalist in the 1986 competition).

For some reason, I always felt a bit “miffed” that I missed out on the chance to enter (by the time I’d started songwriting, I would’ve been too old, and the competition wasn’t running by then anyway…). In 1994 I set out to write “the song I would’ve liked to perform on the show”, called “Shelter”—I only demoed it on four-track cassette in 1994 and again in 1996, but I’d like to re-record it properly sometime as I still rather like the song. But that’s for another time…

…as here is my 2012 tribute to the BBC “Song For Christmas” competition, if a slightly tongue-in-cheek, even satirical one! I’ve added it to a new page on this site, devoted to my “singles” (i.e. standalone, non-album tracks), of which this is the first; I’ll try and write some production notes for the page in due course, in my copious free time!

The Bandcamp download of “My Own Song For Christmas” costs £1 (or equivalent in your local currency), and includes a “B-side” of sorts, the traditional piece “Argiers” (based on Mike Oldfield’s 1976 arrangement of it). Please go take a listen, and let your friends know 🙂