I was in a garage in Edinburgh and snow and children weren’t playing, having
It has become an enduring Christmas classic with a newly awarded Royal seal of approval but the unmistakable first notes of Merry Christmas Everyone came from an Edinburgh garage.
Shakin’ Stevens was asked to perform his No 1 hit – which reached the top of the charts 35 years ago – for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge last Monday as they travelled from London to Edinburgh to begin their tour of thanking key workers for their pandemic efforts. Shaky revealed afterwards that Prince William and Kate had requested the song, a fact that delighted its writer, Bob Heatlie. “It was unbelievable when I saw Shaky playing it to Prince William, just great,” said Bob, speaking from his home in Edinburgh. “It’s incredible to think Prince William might have been humming along to the tune.
“I’m finding it hard to believe it’s been 35 years since the song was released, but I suppose it’s a reminder that time just keeps going and going.”
Bob had already written a couple of hits for Shaky – Cry Just A Little Bit and Breaking Up My Heart – when he decided to come up with a festive song for the Welsh singer.
“I sat down to try to write a Christmas song because I knew if you could have a hit at that time of year then it would carry on forever,” said Bob, 74. “As I was working on the song, I thought ‘wow, this is a big one’. I just felt it. There are hooks everywhere in the song, even the introduction is a big hook. It’s very commercial sounding and I think it’s the melody that makes it so memorable for people.”
Bob wrote the song in his home studio, a garage he could afford to have converted after the success of his first songwriting hit, Japanese Boy, a No 1 for Aneka – also known as Scots folk singer Mary Sandeman – in 1981.
“My garage is soundproofed, which makes it even hotter, and it was already a July heatwave when I started writing it,” he laughed. “I was wearing shorts and sweating like a pig as I was putting bells down on the demo. But it didn’t take me long to write it, no more than a week, coming back and forth to it over a few days.”
Shakin’ Stevens had the last of his four No 1 singles with Merry Christmas Everyone, following
Green Door, This Ole House and Oh Julie, and felt it was a winner the moment he listened to it.
“When I first heard the track after Bob sent it down, I knew instantly – it had the tune, the lyrics, the full package, and I could see it appealing to just about everyone,” Shaky recalled.
“We recorded the track and it was going to come out in time for Christmas, but then we heard about