TUNES THAT TOP PENSION CHARTS
I TRUST the fourth quarter of the financial year is proving as satisfactory for Noddy Holder, Roy Wood, Jona Lewie and Shane MacGowan as it normally does.
As a radio listener, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be.
Merry Christmas Everybody, written by Holder and Slade bandmate Jim Lea in 1973 is, for the 45th year running, in yuletide ubiquity.
Wood’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day has made his wish come true ever since its release the same year. In royalty terms, it is Christmas every day.
We move to the 1980s and two songs I actually care about.
Pogues singer MacGowan’s masterpiece Fairytale of New York will continue to support him handsomely even if he survives to 105 (which I doubt). And Lewie, who wrote, sang and played everything on Stop the Cavalry, quietly earns an estimated £120,000 a year for his couple of days’ trouble back in 1980.
Since it is Christmas, then, let me offer a little pensions advice for younger readers with a musical bent.
Write one of those. Take some time out from the angst and the wailing and sniping at ex-girlfriends in song – we all have our problems – and write one of those.
It may seem like a chore today but your twenties are absolutely the right time to invest your talents in this most lucrative of pensions markets.
Good luck – and don’t forget the sleigh bells.