| "Snoopy's Christmas" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Side A of the Australian single | ||||
| Single by The Royal Guardsmen | ||||
| from the album Snoopy and His Friends | ||||
| B-side | "It Kinda Looks Like Christmas" | |||
| Released | 1967 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length |
| |||
| Label | Laurie (LR 3416) | |||
| Songwriter(s) | ||||
| The Royal Guardsmen singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Snoopy's Christmas" is a song by The Royal Guardsmen which appears on the album Snoopy and His Friends (1967).
A followup to their earlier hit "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron", the song is a fictional account of how Snoopy was directed to go out and fight the Red Baron on a bitterly cold Christmas Eve. The Baron has Snoopy at his mercy after a long dogfight, but instead of shooting him down he forces Snoopy to land and offers Snoopy a chivalrous holiday toast. Afterward, Snoopy and the Red Baron fly their separate ways, "each knowing they'd meet on some other day". [1]
The release begins with a chorus singing "O Tannenbaum" ("O Christmas Tree"). The middle of the song is bridged by chimes ringing out a phrase from "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". The chimes can also can be heard during the fade-out at the end of the song. The album version of the song has a simulated radio news report of failed efforts at a Christmas truce, leading to Snoopy being sent out to hunt his sworn foe.
The song references the 1914 "Christmas truce" of World War I which was initiated not by German and British commanders, but by the soldiers themselves. [2] The length of the cease-fire varied by location, and was reported to have been as brief as Christmas Day or as long as the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. Trench-bound combatants exchanged small gifts across the lines, with Germans giving beer to the British, who sent tobacco and tinned meat back in return. No Man's Land was cleared of dead bodies, trenches were repaired and drained, and troops from both sides shared pictures of their families and, in some places, used No Man's Land for friendly games of football. [3] The song even has the initiator correct as it was generally the German soldiers who called over to the British and initiated the truce and, in the song, it is the Red Baron—a German WWI hero—who extends the hand of Christmas friendship to Snoopy.
"Snoopy's Christmas" reached the No. 1 position in the New Zealand and Australia [4] singles charts in 1967, and remains a popular Christmas song in those countries. The song was the fastest-selling single at the time it was originally released and is estimated to be the biggest selling overseas single sold in New Zealand in the 20th century. [5] The song frequently reenters the New Zealand singles chart, charting in December 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2013. [6] "Snoopy's Christmas" was also voted "the worst Christmas song of all time" by readers of the New Zealand Herald in 2007. [7] Bruce Ward, the EMI executive who was in his first year at EMI when he chose to release the song as a single, puts its success down to 'New Zealand's strange taste in music'. [8]
In Canada, the song reached No. 39, January 6, 1968. [9]
The Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914.
The Royal Guardsmen are an American rock band best known for their 1966 hit singles "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron", "The Return of The Red Baron", "Snoopy For President", and the Christmas follow-up "Snoopy's Christmas".
"Pipes of Peace" is a song written by the English musician Paul McCartney and the title track on his 1983 studio album of the same name. It was released in December 1983 as a single and reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks and No. 1 on the Irish Singles Chart for two weeks in January 1984.
"Run Rudolph Run" is a Christmas song written by Chuck Berry but credited to Johnny Marks and M. Brodie due to Marks's trademark on the character of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was published by St. Nicholas Music (ASCAP) and was first recorded by Berry in 1958, released as a single on Chess Records.
"Stop the Cavalry" is an anti-war song and a Christmas song written and performed by English musician Jona Lewie, released in 1980. The song peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart in December 1980, at one point being kept from number one by two re-issued songs by John Lennon, who had been murdered on 8 December that year. Initially a stand-alone single, the song was included on Lewie's album Heart Skips Beat which was released nearly two years later.
Manfred von Richthofen, also known as the "Red Baron", was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I and one of the most famous aviators in history, as well as the subject of many books, films and other media. The following is a list of mentions of him in popular culture.
"A Holly Jolly Christmas", also known as "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas", is a Christmas song written by Johnny Marks and most famously performed by Burl Ives. The song has since become one of the top 25 most-performed "holiday" songs written by ASCAP members, for the first five years of the 21st century. Successful covers have notably been recorded by Alan Jackson, Jerrod Niemann, Lady Antebellum and Michael Bublé.
"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" is a novelty song written by Phil Gernhard and Dick Holler and recorded in 1966 by the Florida-based pop group The Royal Guardsmen. The song was recorded at the Charles Fuller Productions studio in Tampa, Florida, and was released as a single on Laurie Records. Debuting at #122 on the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 on December 10, 1966, the single skyrocketed to #30 on December 17, 1966, shot up again to #7 on December 24, 1966 and peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 during the week of December 31, 1966 ; made #6 on the Record Retailer (UK) chart in February 1967; was #1 in Australia for 5 weeks from February 1967; and #1 for 3 weeks in Canada. On the Hot 100, "Believer" at #1 kept "Snoopy" at #2 from reaching the Hot 100 summit from December 31, 1966, through January 21, 1967, after which "Snoopy" fell off while "Believer" stayed at the top for another 3 weeks; however the song spent one week at the top of the Record World charts. The song sold close to three million copies.
"The Millennium Prayer" is a song recorded by English singer Cliff Richard, in which the words of the Lord's Prayer are set to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne". It was released in November 1999 as a charity single in the lead-up to the new millennium, hence the name. The single became a surprise hit reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart, number two in Australia and New Zealand, number three in Ireland, and the top 20 in a number of European countries.
Snoopy and His Friends is the third album by the Ocala, Florida group The Royal Guardsmen.
Vince Harder is a New Zealand R&B/pop recording artist and producer. He is most notable for the 2008 song "Everything" with P-Money, which reached number one in New Zealand on the New Zealand Singles Chart in 2008. In May 2010, he released the single "Say This With Me" which peaked at number 39 on the singles chart.
The singles discography of Australian singer Kylie Minogue consists of eighty-three singles as lead artist, eight singles as a featured artist, nine charity singles and twenty-four promotional recordings. Referred as the "Princess of Pop" by various media outlets, she has sold more than 80 million records worldwide. In Australia, she has a total of ten number-one singles, twenty-three top-ten hits and forty-seven top-forty entries. In the United Kingdom, with seven number-one singles, eleven singles that peaked at number two, thirty-five top-ten hits and fifty-two top-forty entries, she is the twelfth-best-selling singles artist and the third-best-selling female artist of all time to date, selling over 10.1 million singles.
Annabel Charlotte Fay is a pop recording artist from Auckland, New Zealand; and the daughter of merchant banker Sir Michael Fay. She first appeared on the New Zealand music scene in late 2006 as a nineteen-year-old with her debut single, "Lovin' You Baby". The single peaked at No. 9 and spent 8 weeks on the New Zealand Top 40 Singles Chart.
"Underneath the Tree" is a song by American singer Kelly Clarkson from her sixth studio album and first Christmas album, Wrapped in Red (2013). She co-wrote the track with its producer Greg Kurstin. It is a Christmas-themed song that sings of gratitude for companionship during the holidays, in which the loved one is referred to as the only present needed "underneath the tree". Accompanied by various instrumental sounds, the song is given a Wall of Sound treatment, along with sleigh bells and bell chimes to create a holiday atmosphere. "Underneath the Tree" was first released to Adult Contemporary radio stations on November 5, 2013, by RCA Records as the album's lead single.
New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde has released three studio albums, four extended plays, 12 singles and 13 music videos. At the age of 13, she was signed to Universal Music Group (UMG) and started to write music. In November 2012, when she was 16 years old, she self-released The Love Club EP via SoundCloud. It was released for sale by UMG in March 2013; a song from the EP, "Royals", topped numerous single charts internationally, including the US Billboard Hot 100. The track sold over 10 million units worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.
Together with Cliff Richard is a Christmas album by Cliff Richard, released in November 1991. The album features Richard singing popular traditional Christmas songs, his Christmas hits from recent years and two original songs.
Snoopy for President is an album by The Royal Guardsmen, released by Laurie Records in 1968.
"The Jolly Green Giant" is a song written by Lynn Easton, Don Harris, and Dewey Terry and performed by The Kingsmen. It reached No.1 on the Canadian chart, No.4 on the U.S. pop chart, and No.25 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1965. It was featured on their 1965 album The Kingsmen Volume 3. The song was based on the Green Giant food brand's mascot the Jolly Green Giant. The single originally only credited Easton as the writer, but Harris and Terry were later added when it was determined the song was a re-write of The Olympics song "Big Boy Pete".
Phillip Arnold Gernhard was an American record producer, record label executive, and songwriter. He is best known for his successful collaborations in the 1960s and 1970s with Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, The Royal Guardsmen, Dion, Lobo, Jim Stafford, and the Bellamy Brothers.
The Hotshots was a ska band which had a hit single in the UK singles charts with a cover of "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron" in 1973.
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