Noddy Holder recalls Merry Xmas Everybody's 1960s origins - and performing it after tragedy
Slade's Noddy Holder has looked back at his band's legendary festive hit, Merry Xmas Everybody, including how the first parts were written in the 1960s and performing it soon after a tragic car crash claimed the life of the band's drummer's girlfriend.
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The rock and Roll legend and Walsall icon appeared on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch over the weekend, to talk about his time in Slade and the creation of the Christmas song which reached number one 50 years ago.
The rock legend was first seen on the show as he shouted "It's Sunday!" in his iconic "It's Christmas" style, prior to the show's introduction before joining fellow guest stars, Tom Davis, Julia Bradbury, Vicki Pepperdine and Romy on the shows table.
The singer talked about the mass amount of records that were sold after the song was revealed, saying they received half a million pre-sales days before release.
Noddy said: "In those days, you really shifted some records if you were a Christmas number one, we had 500,000 pre-sales before the day of release, we had a gold record before we released it, and the first day of re-orders, when it went to number one, was 360,000 and it did a million in a fortnight.
"They really couldn't keep up with the demand."
