The Guardian’s Media Monkey has dismissed the campaign to get Sir Cliff’s ‘Little Town’ back into the charts, averring that his fans are too old for innovations like Facebook and iTunes.Mr Monkey may have a point. The song is presently in Amazon’s Top 100 downloads, and has been as high as 69 (cue Hallelujah Chorus). But it is yet to appear in the iTunes chart, stubbornly displaced by such quality Christmas hits as ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’ and the perennially dreadful ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’.
With the news that the Blogosphere’s No1 Cliff Richard fan is (very sadly) departing the scene, there is consternation at Cliff HQ that Aunt Doris just can’t hack the New Meedja and is too senile to grasp ‘those computer things’.
Well, His Grace plods on.
And he is 521 years old.
He persists because he would like the Christmas No1 to be a Christmas carol. It is a time to remember that God became man; a baby born in a manger; a season of peace and good will.
He persists because Cliff is donating all of his download royalties to Alzheimer’s Research, and there is no loneliness quite like that you feel when your nearest and dearest does not even remember your name, let alone 50 years of joyous memories.
He persists because he is fed up of the Cowellisation of the nation’s popular music: not so much ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’ as ‘He who calls the tune is Simon Cowell who pays himself’.
He persists because he is fed up with the fabricated, plastic pop idols who are here today and gone tomorrow, because they delude the nation’s youth with perpetual hopes of instant fame and fortune.
He persists because Matt Cardle is simply one in a long line of here-today-gone-tomorrow Cowellian creations. Remember past winners? Steve Brookstein? Leon Jackson? Matt Cardle is the man of the moment; ephemeral and transient.
He persists because he was quite appalled at the sudden change of rules this year which kept Mary Byrne out of the final. Now that all voting statistics have been released, it is clear that she and not Cher would have been in the final had it not been for a last-minute ‘fix’.
He persists because X-Factor this year became sleazy: we had whores dancing on the stage, clad in leather and lace, in staging which would not have been out of place in a brothel.
He persists because, well… it’s Christmas. And he wants one just like the ones he used to know. Where the tree-tops glisten, and children listen…
So, please download it on iTunes or Amazon.
Go on. It's just a few pence.
Merry Cliffmas!
