Blog: It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

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For ages now we've been committed to providing a song for a Prolapse covers albums - AGES and ages in fact, and after some discussion we recently BOOKED a session to go and record it. The Validators were going in on their own to do it, and as it was being planned Tim suggested that we could use the session to ALSO record a Christmas song.

This filled my heart with JOY - i love the fact that adding to the Christmas Selection Box every year has become part of Validators LORE - so I readily agreed, and so last week The Vlads went back to Snug to MAKE IT UP!

The files were duly sent to me, and yesterday I sat down to piece it all together (Mr R Newman sent me ALL the tracks seperately, so I had the unbeatable DELIGHT of trying to mix a full drum kit). It sounds AMAZING! Our version of (SPOILERS) "Deanshanger" is CRACKING - really quite EXCITING, with violin BAGPIPES and all sorts, and the Christmas song is LOVELY. However, I'd been having a bit of a problem with this latter item - Tom had sent me a rough demo recording of it last month, and I'd got pretty much NOWHERE with thinking up any actual WORDS. I'd gone through all sorts of vague ideas, and had a discussion with The Branches On My Christmas Tree about it where I'd thought i MIGHT do it about Christmas Card lists, but I'd only got as far as a first verse about standing in Paperchase looking at all the different types of cards.

I mean, standing in Paperchase? How am I going to make a video out of THAT? I haven't made a video for ages and would rather like to for this year's song - maybe that was what was stopping me coming up with something good?

Then this morning: INSPIRATION! Sat at home getting ready to go to work I remembered going to my Dad's at Christmas several years ago, and going for a wander round his village looking at all the Christmas lights. I googled pictures of Christmas lights and then - HELLO IDEAS! Suddenly lines, choruses, whole verses and a STORY starting FLOODING into the BRANE BATH, filling it so quickly that I had to scrabble for notebook and, when that was TOO SLOW, my PHONE to record it on. All the way down Leytonstone High Road THORTS occurred and there were more on the TUBE. HOORAH!

When I got to work I found I had the office to myself, so put my MyPod on and LISTENED to the recording. Over the next hour (while simultaneously Working Jolly Hard, of course) I wrote it all out - I knew how the story would go, it was just a question of making it RHYME really! Ever since I first heard the tune I'd been DETERMINED not to make it a Spoken Word Piece but... well, that's pretty much what it is, really, though with a LOT of rhymes in it, and there is at least a little bit of Actual Singing in the chorus. I'll probably need to get Emma to do that bit tho, it's a bit high!

So there we go - DONE! Hopefully I'll be able to get it recorded in the next week or so, ready for the addition of backing vocals, violins, SLEIGHBELLS and wotnot, and it'll be with you some time over Advent. All I have to do now is make that video!

posted 12/10/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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