English Listening Practice with Iconic Christmas Hits Ep 790
14:54 Share

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app, you can talk live and have a real-time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things, like if you want to practice for an upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 plus to use Gemini Live.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

Hi there and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. By the time you're listening to this, it will be pretty much Christmas. So, let's do a Christmas theme for this podcast. I know that there are many of you who belong to different religions, but

who perhaps still enjoy some aspects of Christmas. There are also many Christians out there for whom Christmas is really important. And there are many people who don't belong to a particular religion, but who still enjoy Christmas. Today's podcast is about Christmas pop music.

So, you'll learn a lot of English language vocabulary today, but if you like Christmas music like I do, it will be a topic that you enjoy. And hear my opinion on a controversial but very well-known Christmas song that you'll probably know. Lots to enjoy today. Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English.

We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works. And in the Christmas spirit,

Why not give a little bit back to Adept English for all of your free English language listening content? Simply by subscribing on platforms like Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen, you can help us out. You can also help us by sharing our podcast.

with other people or by giving us a five-star review. All of this helps Adept English grow. And as I always say, we're a tiny company, just two people, and we don't advertise. People find out about Adept English through word of mouth. So help us grow for free by subscribing, reviewing or sharing our podcast. We say a big thank you to you for doing that.

Thank you. So for me, one of the important elements of Christmas is the music. If you listen to the radio in the run-up to Christmas in the UK, you will hear a lot of Christmas songs. And there are new Christmas songs coming out each year, but most of what we listen to at

Christmas are old songs, and many of them are British. In the UK, Wham and Last Christmas looks likely to be the most streamed Christmas song for the second year running, despite it being 30 years since it was released. The Christmas chart has changed since it was possible to include what is streamed and what is downloaded.

And it means it reflects better what people are listening to at Christmas. And the old ones are the best, it seems. I do love a bit of George Michael and I loved one when I was younger.

If you see photographs of Andrew Ridgely, you realise what a long time ago it all was. But from Iceland to Lebanon and in many European countries, Wham! and Last Christmas has been a Christmas number one. And actually, there are just so many Christmas songs you hear on the radio. I still think that music is one of the UK's greatest exports. That word export,

E-X-P-O-R-T means what we sell outside of the UK. You can use the verb to export or use the word export to talk about a product. We export British beef, for instance. But British music is heard all over the world. And music is something that we're quite good at, I

So the Christmas songs I'm talking about today may be British, but you may well know them. Another very popular British Christmas song, Shaking Stevens' Merry Christmas Everyone. I've heard this played so many times recently. And Shaking Stevens, not his real name, of course, is a very popular British Christmas song.

is from Cardiff, the capital of Wales in the UK. That song was released in 1985 and seems to have grown in popularity since then. I would imagine that for Shakin' Stevens, though he did have many other songs, it will be this one that pays the most royalties.

A royalty, R-O-Y-A-L-T-Y, means the money that an artist or singer gets paid when their music is played. Another British artist who is probably best known for his Christmas song, what about Chris Rea and Driving Home for Christmas? That one's

pretty well known all over the world too. Chris Rea wrote the song when he was driving home from London to Middlesbrough in the northeast of England. And I associate this song with actually driving home for Christmas too. I'm from the northwest of England, but the motorways are similarly jam-packed.

with cars before Christmas. This song would be playing on my many long drives up north to see family at Christmas. I do it less now because most of my family live further south or in France now. The other song of Chris Rears that you might know is The Road to Hell. He was writing there about the M25, the motorway that circles London.

It's a massive circle. Please don't be put off if you visit the UK and you have to drive on the M25. It's busy, but it's not that bad, really. The road to hell feels a bit over the top, perhaps. And it makes Chris Rea sound obsessed with driving, which I'm sure he's not. But driving home for Christmas has been top of the charts in Slovenia and Croatia and nearly made it in Norway and Austria, too. So it's well known in Europe.

Obviously, American singers are also in the charts at this time of year. Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is usually towards the top of any chart of music at Christmas, as well as Ariana Grande's Santa Tell Me. I do like that one.

I think it really shows off Ariana Grande's lovely voice. And what about Brenda Lee rocking around the Christmas tree? She must do very well out of that song. It was first recorded in 1958 when Brenda Lee was only 13 years old. She's 80 years old now.

Good luck to her, I say. The royalties from this song must have helped Brenda Lee buy her Christmas presents for many years. But back to UK songs, Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmas Time is also pretty well known across the world. But of course, he's an ex-Beatle, so his Christmas song will be well known across the world. And it's the same with our own dear old Elton John.

and Step Into Christmas. Elton John is another of my favourites, so many good songs. But lesser British singers are also known all around the world for their Christmas music. What about The Pogues and The Fairy Tale of New York? This song was a joint venture between British singer Kirstie McColl

and Shane McGowan and the Pokes, who were described as an Anglo-Irish band and called themselves

Celtic punk, but who were based in London, of course. It's a song about Christmas in New York, but certainly not your typical Christmas song. And perhaps that's why we like it. The characters in the song call each other names and talk about the drunk tank. But this song is loved across the world. Kirsty McColl was famous for other songs, of course, including

including the very British, there's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis. Look that one up if you don't know it. But sadly, no longer with us, Kirsty McColl was killed in a boating accident in the year 2000 in Mexico, and she actually saved her son's life as she died. Of the two of them, one would never have imagined that Shane McGowan would live longer. He's well known for his unfortunate history with drink and drugs.

Apparently Shane McGowan started drinking at age 5 but actually he only died in 2023 age 65 which is probably down to good medical care. This

This song, Fairy Tale of New York, is probably less known across the world, but listeners in Sweden, Norway and Japan will certainly know it. Check it out on YouTube if you haven't heard it before. It's a good one and great English language practice.

Other Christmas songs from the UK. Well, you can't get very far without hearing Band-Aid, Do They Know It's Christmas? This song has been re-released a number of times, but I prefer the original 1984 version. This song was, of course, a charity song that C-H-A-R-I-T-Y organised and put together by Irishman Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats.

And the video associated with the original song is a who's who of British and Irish mid-1980s music. And I love the history of it. George Michael again features, but also Boy George, Sting, Mijur, along with Bananarama, Simon the Bon of Duran Duran, and Gary Kemp and Tony Hadley of Spando Ballet. If you know the songs Gold,

And True, they're both Spandau Ballet. You've probably heard those. Also, there was Paul Weller of The Jam. I love him. And Francis Rossi and Rick Parfit of Status Quo. Bill Collins, of course, and Bono of U2. Also, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. Remember them? I do love 1980s music.

And that really is a who's who of 1980s music, isn't it? There have also been versions released in 1989, 2004 and 2014. And there's also a 2024 release this year called Band-Aid 40 to mark the 40th anniversary. And there has been controversy. C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-Y.

That means disagreement over this release because the song uses Liam Payne's vocals posthumously. That means after his death, the One Direction singer died, sadly, in October this year, falling from a balcony in Argentina. And the word band-aid, it

It's the name of a type of plaster. That's a covering that you might put on your finger if you cut it. But the point of the name, it's a pun, P-U-N. That means a word with a double meaning. It's also a music band, B-A-N-D, and aid, A-I-D, or help for people in Africa.

But that name Band-Aid was also chosen because it's only a sticking plaster, meaning that the song would make things better only in the short term. It wasn't a long-term solution to the problems. There have, of course, been lots of criticisms of the lyrics of the Band-Aid song. And too right. It addresses Africa as though it's a

country rather than a whole continent full of different countries, diverse countries. It's been criticised for having a them and us feel. It's full of negative stereotypes and it's patronising. That's P-A-T-R-O-S.

A number of singers have refused to sing on the re-releases of Do They Know It's Christmas. Even the song title, Do They Know It's Christmas, is completely ridiculous.

Many of the countries in Africa are Christian countries and Ethiopia, whose famine motivated the song in the first place, that's famine, F-A-M-I-N-E, and means severe shortage of food. Well, 64% of

Ethiopians are Christian. So I'm pretty sure they did know it was Christmas. And the percentage of Christians is very high in many African countries like Namibia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. I could go on. The lyrics also portray the entire continent as starving.

To starve, S-T-A-R-V-E, means to die through lack of food and as though it has no rivers, which again is ridiculous. These lyrics can be criticised in retrospect. That means looking back. And for having what's become known as white saviour complex.

And actually, Bob Geldof admitted in 2010 that he is responsible for the two worst songs in history. One being Do They Know It's Christmas? The other one, We Are The World, the US charity song released at the same time. But Bob Geldof said it was about raising money for people who were starving and

it was successful in that goal. He said again in 2024, this little pop song has kept hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people alive. And here's some more difficult English for you to practice on. Bob Geldof also said the alleged colonial tropes of the lyrics were in fact empirical facts.

and that hunger remains endemic in Ethiopia, water is scarce and rain is increasingly unreliable due to climate change. Whatever you think of those lyrics when you come to examine them, this song has done good in the world. And it's still one of the songs of Christmas in many countries today. Anyway, that's my roundup of Christmas music.

Let us know how many of them you know. These songs may be completely familiar to you or you may not have heard of them at all. Why not spend a happy half hour on YouTube listening to them if you can? As I said, great English language listening practice. Let me also wish you a very happy Christmas. All the best. Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon.

Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com.