Sensible Gray Cells Christmas single

The Sensible Gray Cells: Stupid Xmas / Keep It To Yourself
(Damaged Goods, DAMGOOD608, UK, 2023)

It is funny how some musicians keep coming back to Christmas throughout their careers, even though you would think they hate Christmas, judging by the lyrics of their Christmas songs. Take, for example, "Stupid Xmas," the Christmas single just released by The Sensible Gray Cells. The Sensible Gray Cells are fronted by Captain Sensible (Raymond Burns), one of the founding members of first-wave British punk band The Damned and, for a brief period in the early 1980s, a bona fide pop star, albeit one with his tongue firmly in his cheek. The Captain had a UK number one hit with "Happy Talk" (a song from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific) and two more UK top 30 hits with the novelty rap song "Wot?!" (1982, #26 UK, #10 here in the Netherlands) and the anti-war song "Glad It's All Over" (1984, #6 UK). In 1980, he and fellow The Sensible Gray Cells member Paul Gray recorded the Christmas song 'There Ain't No Sanity Clause' as part of The Damned. The band released it as a single. In 1983 the song was re-released in a remixed version with a different B-side. And one year later Captain Sensible released a solo Christmas single, 'One Christmas Catalogue'.

So you might think that the Captain has a weakness for Christmas. Well, not when you listen to 'Stupid Xmas', in which he complains about spending 'hard-earned lolly' on 'the stuff nobody wears', 'for that lot you can't bear', having to listen to the same old Christmas songs that should have been binned a long time ago but you still sing along to (Slade!) and, worst of all, having to record a Christmas song while the roses are still blooming because 'Lord knows it's only June!' But we all know the Captain is not a plaintiff, and he concludes: 'Let's not whine, it's Christmas time!' So bring on the Christmas bells and vocal harmonies, tell producer Dick Crippen he is Phil Spector, bring your friends and family, the dog and the stuffed turkey toy (no stuffed turkey please, the Captain is a vegetarian), put on a Christmas hat, shoot a video in the middle of summer pretending to be cold (as in "It's Christmas!!!"), finish with a cool guitar solo and there you have it: another Christmas hit to annoy you every Christmas forever.

Released on 7" by Damaged Good Records, on green and red vinyl. Randomly assigned, so it will be a surprise when you buy a copy, which colour you will find inside. And you may be in for even more surprises as, according to the press release, "a certain number of records will have a deliberate mistake hidden... well, somewhere - a jolly wheeze inspired by some of those old Stiff Records 'instant collector's item' mispressings". So, plenty to get excited about! B-side 'Keep It To Yourself' is not a Christmas song, but "sees the band in full 'armchair detective' mode, taking a look at the still unresolved Madeleine McCann mystery", to quote the same press release.

In addition to Captain Sensible on guitar and vocals and Paul Gray of The Damned and Eddie And The Hot Rots on bass, The Sensible Gray Cells features Johnny Moped drummer Martin Parrott on drums. The band recorded their debut album with a different drummer in 2013, reunited with new drummer Parrott in 2019 and released their second album 'Get Back Into The World' in 2020.

The single is sold out on the Damaged Goods website, but if you are lucky you can still find it online or in your local record shop.

You can watch the video for 'Stupid Xmas' here: