Format 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl Label Epic | Length 3:39 | |
B-side "With My Heart", "Blue Christmas" Released 25 November 1985 (1985-11-25) Genre Pop rock, Christmas Music | ||
"Merry Christmas Everyone" is a festive song by Welsh British singer-songwriter Shakin' Stevens. Written by Bob Heatlie and produced by Dave Edmunds, it was the fourth number one single from Shakin' Stevens on the UK Singles Chart.
Contents
It was released on 25 November 1985 and was the Christmas number one for that year. Ever since it has been included on many top-selling Christmas collections and received frequent airplay every Christmas. In 2007, the song re-entered the UK top 30 and reached number 22 on the Christmas chart. This was because downloads now make up the UK Singles Chart; in past years this would have been impossible unless there was a physical re-release of the song. From 2007 to 2016, the song charted in the UK at peak positions 22, 36, 49, 47, and 42, 46, 54, 38, 26. The song also matched it's download 2007 era peak of 22 in the 2016 Christmas chart
Music video
The video shows a young girl named Samantha travelling by plane to a place called Santaworld where she meets up with Stevens who met her on a bus going to the place. Stevens is then seen riding with a woman dressed as an elf in a sleigh pulled by a horse and is taken to meet Santa Claus before going to a replica of Santa's workshop where children as seen playing with toys before going out with Santa on the sleigh and joins in a snowball fight with some other children and ends up hitting a snowman who starts to chase him. At the end of the video, Stevens is seen bidding farewell to Santa, the snowman and the children before going back into the sleigh with the woman. The children included Shaky's son, daughter, their friends including child actor Sarah J Price.
"Echoes of Merry Christmas Everyone" (2015)
In time for Christmas 2015, Shakin' Stevens released a new version of the song as a charity single in collaboration with The Salvation Army. It is a completely revamped version with folk / bluegrass influences and prominent use of banjo. The single was available as a download starting December 2015 with all proceeds going to The Salvation Army.
The 2015 single didn't chart on the UK Top 100, although the original by Shakin' Stevens made it to number 26 on the UK Top 100 Chart published on Christmas week.