Last Christmas

Ho Ho Ho! Only three days to go!

For my final post this side of Christmas 2013 I'm digging into my collection for one of my all-time favourite (and one of the sickest) Christmas records - Lick a Smurp for Christmas by Father Abraphart and the Smurps, a.k.a Jonathan King.

First featured on the blog back in 2009, I realise that I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself for being the proud owner of two versions of this particular atrocity. Released at the height of the Smurfs first brush with fame, Lick a Smurp for Christmas was released on both a hard vinyl 7" (backed with a sing-along instrumental) and one-sided flexi disc, available for a limited time for just 10 new pennies. The song recounts the tale of how certain Smurf-related toys, which had been widely imported into the UK, were causing all sorts of problems - primarily because the lead-based paint that had been used to decorate the dear little things was highly toxic.

That would probably be reason enough for the disc to find a place in any collection of audio horrors, but, as I've already mentioned, the record was created by the man who discovered Genesis (damn him!) and who was sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2001 after being convicted of sexually assaulting a series of teenage boys between 1983 and 1989. Released on parole in March 2005, King has always maintained his innocence. IN recent years he has released new material (which attracted even more controversy with one song about the UK's worst serial killer Dr Harold Shipman), a volume of autobiography and a documentary protesting his innocence. Whatever you choose to believe, Lick a Smurp for Christmas must be one of the worst Christmas records of all time. And I love it.

Today's second post is a request: Santa Claus Has Got The AIDS This Year by Tiny Tim.

Controversy rages about this particular cut. It has been claimed by a number of sources that this song was recorded in 1980, two years before the term AIDS began to be used in conjunction with what was then still known by many as 'the gay plague'. In fact there is no evidence at all, bar a single revisionist quote from the late ukulele-playing troubadour himself, that this song is not about the disease which has wiped millions of people off the face of the earth: the recording did not surface until 1995 (on the album Songs of an Impotent Troubadour). In the sleeve notes to that album, a collection of self-composed songs written over a period of more than 45 years but recorded in one session in 1994, the producer says he became aware of the song in 1984 - well after the acronym AIDS was in common use.

Tiny claimed that his tune was about Santa's over indulgence on Ayds (a chocolate bar popular with slimmers) but that he couldn't use the name Ayds as it would have led to copyright infringement. Personally I think that's bull. The lyrics make it perfectly clear that poor old Santa is lying in bed stricken with a terrible illness, not that he's having to dash off to the lavatory every few minutes with rampant diarrhoea because he's binged on slimming treats. Still, it is what it is - a truly bad-taste piece of work by a titan of outsider music and truly worthy of a place here at The World's Worst Records.

Finally, I'd just like to mention that the podcast I recorded recently for (and with) The Squire Presents is now online. In this seasonal special The Squire and I discuss our favourite Christmas records - a full 16 of the horrors. Apologies for sounding like I recorded my bit from inside a cardboard box (and for the endless sniffing) but it's still well worth a listen.

Enjoy - and a truly happy Christmas to you and yours!