Wonderful Christmastime

Yesterday, Paul McCartney published either a cleaned-up version or a better copy of the music video for his 1979 Christmas hit single, “Wonderful Christmastime”. Or it might just be a new transfer in higher quality. The song itself also seems to be a new edit, utilising bits from the longer version. The music video features his then group, Wings, whereas the single itself is really a solo performance, which he recorded that summer. But in December, Wings went on a tour of the U.K. and performed the song live, with fake snow falling down during the performance.

I was lucky enough to attend Paul’s performance at the O2 in London last year, where he and his band were joined by the Capital Children’s choir for this song, and again, fake snow fell during the song. Now that would have been the highlight of the evening, if it wasn’t for the fact that after the song, he announced Ringo Starr on the stage.

This is one of McCartney’s songs that tends to divide his fans into two camps, those who love it and those who hate it. I’ve always enjoyed it for what it is, it’s a Christmas song, just like “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “We All Stand Together” were children’s songs.

It has been a staple and constantly radio played each Christmas in the U.K. alongside Lennon’s “Happy X-mas (War is over)” ever since, that’s for sure – but I’m not sure if that’s the case in the U.S.A.

If McCartney has really dug into his video archives and transferred further music videos to the digital domain in higher quality, that’s a good thing. The company Keefco, who produced his music videos at the time, was also responsible for the “Back To The Egg” TV special, and that is one of the gems we are hoping to see in a future release of that album in his Archives series. In an interview, Paul recently revealed that he had listened to the song “Arrow Through Me” from “Back To The Egg” for the first time in a long while, another clue to the next Archives release?

Another indication that something is going on in the music video department, is that the Linda McCartney account on YouTube has been publishing music videos of her songs these past few weeks.

Paul McCartney released a DVD compilation of a number of his music videos back in 2007, called “The McCartney Years“. perhaps the time is right for an upgrade to Blu-ray – and Dolby Atmos.