Slade's annual salary from Merry Xmas Everybody as inspiration behind hit single revealed

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Slade frontman Noddy Holder has confirmed the "real" inspiration behind the band's iconic Christmas number one, Merry Xmas Everybody.The timeless festive hit was released back in 1973 and has been played all over the world every winter since.

The single still generates around £500,000 every year but it actually started out as "hippy-trippy thing" that was far from the famous Christmas song it went on to be.Noddy, 77, who was given the all clear after a battle with oesophageal cancer in 2018, admits he wrote the track in just a couple of hours while sitting drinking in his childhood bedroom, the Mirror reports.The English singer songwriter said the song was written years before its release but was re-written to become a Christmas track.Speaking to the Mirror, Noddy said: "The song that became Merry Xmas Everybody was written in 1967.

It was a hippy-trippy thing and the chorus went: 'So won't you buy me a rocking chair to watch the world go by / Buy me a looking glass to look me in the eye-eye-eye.'"He added that he rewrote his original song in just two hours after getting the whiskey out and used the same music for the chorus but amended the words and added verses in.Noddy revealed the reason why it was turned into a festive hit was due to his co-writer Jim Lea being set a challenge by his mother-in-law to write a Christmas song.About six years prior, he'd written a track called Buy Me A Rocking Chair - which had "gone straight in the bin".The 77-year-old told officialcharts.com that he rewrote the song from his childhood bedroom while staying at his mum and dad's in Walsall. Join the Daily Record's WhatsApp community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages. He said: "I got it done in two or