A Winter's Tale (David Essex song)

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"A Winter's Tale"
Song by David Essex
from the album The Whisper
LanguageEnglish
Released11 December 1982 (1982-12-11)
Recorded1982
GenreSoft rock, Christmas
Length4:10
Composer(s)Mike Batt
Lyricist(s)Tim Rice
Producer(s)Mike Batt

"A Winter's Tale" is a song performed by David Essex on the 1983 album The Whisper. First released as a single in 1982, it reached #2 in the UK singles chart in January 1983, kept off #1 by Phil Collins's cover version of "You Can't Hurry Love".

Production and release[]

"A Winter's Tale" was written by Mike Batt and Tim Rice in late 1982 in response to a request from Essex.[1] It was released as a single in December 1982. It spent ten weeks in the UK chart, peaking at #2 on 15 January 1983.[2] Later in 1983, the song was included on Essex's album The Whisper.[3]

Legacy[]

"A Winter's Tale" was used to open the musical All the Fun of the Fair, launched in 2008, in which it was performed by Louise English.[4]

A 2008 article by Asian News International saw "A Winter's Tale" placed as the fourth worst Christmas song.[5] However, in 2014 The Independent reported a list of 50 Best Christmas songs by PRS for Music, ranking "A Winter's Tale" as the 34th best Christmas song.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ "A Songwriter's Tale". Mike Batt. Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. David Essex rang me late in 1982 - just after my return from Australia, and asked if I could write him a Christmas hit. It was already late October so we didn't have much time. I was due to be writing with Tim Rice the following day- and was hoping to develop my idea for a musical about the Aztecs...anyway so I told Tim about the David Essex request, and we started thinking of ideas. ... we wrote a bit of the chorus and two lines of the verse, and then when Tim had gone home I sat and worked on it, coming up with the finished chorus and the second verse lyrics.
  2. ^ Official Charts Company - David Essex - A Winter's Tale
  3. ^ The Whisper at AllMusic
  4. ^ "All the Fun of the Fair, King's Theatre". The Herald. Glasgow. 5 November 2008. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  5. ^ "The 10 worst Christmas songs ever". Asian News International. London. 19 December 2008. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  6. ^ Clark, Nick (10 December 2012). "The 50 Best Christmas songs: Bells continue to ring for the Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York'". The Independent. Retrieved 23 December 2016.

External links[]

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