The cynic in me – and cynicism occupies a large part of my soul – says "best Christmas song" is a bit like "best trainspotter" or, worse, "best thing about medieval dentistry".
But I'm not entirely Scrooge. I like John and Yoko, can listen to Slade for the first few annual outings of "Here it is …" and appreciate, also in smallish doses, the Pogues and Kirsty's Fairytale, Boney M's Mary's Boy Child among others.
Last weekend took me back to the North East of my childhood and youth.
That lovely feeling of travelling north on the LNER out of King's Cross, over to Middlesbrough to see my sister Sandra, back to Shildon, my home town, for a grand evening with my lifelong pal Pete Sixsmith, a journalists' reunion in Darlington, a winning visit to the Stadium of Light, fish and chips out of newspaper (OK not newspaper but a flat cardboard box) and then home by midnight on Saturday.
And guess which Christmas song Pete Sixsmith had implanted in my brain.
Dylan by Lennox. And check out art by Sunderland's Owen Lennox at https://www.saatchiart.com/quez
Yes, it really Must Be Santa. And no, I cannot get Bob Dylan's track out of my mind. probably never will.
It is emphatically not Dylan at his finest and it is not a song of any evident high quality.
But it's joyous and it's there, stuck in my consciousness. No Bah Humbugs from me, then.
You can make of it what you want. The same goes for O'Hooley and Tidow's eccentric interpretation of Fairytale of New York. Few will share my fondness, which has grown from mere sneaking regard, for this quite off-the-wall version. I love it.
Salut! Live, sadly, has no real history of reader participation.
People are far more likely to have a say on social media, when I post links to what has appeared here, than to leave comments below.
But I'd quite like to know which musical Christmas oddities others have taken a fancy to. And what they think of this pair of seasonal offerings.
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