Here’s a Christmas treat for you from Friends of the Stars….

“Christmas Inside” by Barry Linnie & Friends of the Stars

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If Friends of the Stars were going to do a Christmas song, it just had to be about Yuletide in prison, right? The whole story of how “Christmas Inside” came about can be found on the Sunday Herald website but the potted version is as follows:

Writer, broadcaster and pal of FOTS, Graeme Virtue, asked the band to help him with a very scientific project for a piece he was writing for The Herald, Scotland’s quality national newspaper – He was seeking to harness the essence of Christmas songs and to replicate it with a song of his own. Graeme (pictured below) takes up the story of the song’s creation…

“Sonically, I want to shoot straight for the mass-market, mimicking the soaring secular hymns of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, those galactically popular songs of mid-tempo tenderness and iPod-ready transcendence. But instead of generalised expressions of hope, longing or catharsis, I want to tell a proper Christmas story, with a beginning, a middle and, obviously, a punchline”

Not sure if we ever found that essence, Graeme, but we had a laugh working on it and the tune’s our once-a-decade stab at going for those elusive Snow Patrol millions buried somewhere deep underneath the middle of the road. In 2019 Bono’s gonna help us sing “Foreign Muck” via satellite at a gig in Digbeth; and 2029 might involve a laser keyboard like Jean Michel Jarre has.

Anyway, Graeme also went on BBC Radio Scotland last weekend to talk about it and play wee snatches of the tune. Listen again here (about 1hr 2mins in, right after The Dickies).

Merry Christmas and lots of love from Friends of the Stars

xx

DOWNLOAD “Christmas Inside” (MP3)

Performed by Barry Linnie vs Friends of the Stars
Written by Graeme Virtue and Cam Docherty
Vocals and Guitar – Barry Linnie (aka Graeme Virtue)
Guitars, Bass, Glock, Programming – Cam Docherty
Arranged and Mixed – Cam Docherty

Tagged: BBC Radio Scotland, Christmas, Coldplay, Free, Graeme Virtue, iPod, Janice Forsyth, mp3, Music, Snow Patrol, The Sunday Herald