Thank God It's Christmas

"Thank God It's Christmas" is a Christmas single by the British rock band Queen. It was written by lead guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Released on 26 November 1984, the single spent six weeks in the UK charts over Christmas 1984 and new year of 1985, and peaked at number 21.[1]

"Thank God It's Christmas"
Single by Queen
B-side
Released26 November 1984 (1984-11-26)
Recorded1984
GenreRock, Christmas music
Length4:19
LabelEMI, Capitol
Songwriter(s)Brian May and Roger Taylor
Producer(s)Queen and Reinhold Mack
Queen singles chronology
"Hammer to Fall"
(1984)		 "Thank God It's Christmas"
(1984)		 "One Vision"
(1985)

The song was not originally released on any Queen studio album, appearing only on Queen's Greatest Hits III, released in 1999, and as the B-side of the single "A Winter's Tale" from the 1995 album Made in Heaven. However, the track was finally included on the bonus EP packaged with the deluxe edition of their album The Works, remastered and re-released in 2011.

It appears on the Christmas compilation LP The Edge of Christmas in its full 12" version with the drum intro. It also appears on the US-only compilation boxed-set The Queen Collection, which consisted of a re-release of the LPs Classic Queen and Queen's Greatest Hits along with a bonus CD called Queen Talks that included this song, along with a 1989 interview with the band.

Music video

Upon its original release, no promotional video was filmed for the track, with shows often using footage of live performances in lieu of an official promotional music video. In a 2018 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Brian May blamed the lack of a music video for the single's underwhelming chart performance[2]

In 2019, an animated version of the music video was produced. The animation, directed by Justin Moon and Drew Gleason, depicted a wintery evening scene, with people enjoying each other's company during the Christmas season.[3] The video was released in December 2019 on the Queen Official YouTube channel.[4]

Track listings

7" vinyl

EMI / QUEEN 5

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Thank God It's Christmas"Brian May, Roger Taylor4:22
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Man on the Prowl"Freddie Mercury3:30
2."Keep Passing the Open Windows"Mercury5:22

12" vinyl

EMI / 12QUEEN 5

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Thank God It's Christmas"May, Taylor4:19
2."Man on the Prowl" (Extended version)Mercury5:56
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Keep Passing the Open Windows" (Extended version)Mercury6:50

Personnel

Chart performance
Chart (1984) Peak
position
UK Singles Chart[5][6] 21
Irish Singles Chart[7] 8
Chart (1985) Peak
position
Austrian Singles Chart[8] 21
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[9] 11
German Singles Chart[10] 57
Chart (2013) Peak
position
Slovenia (SloTop50)[11] 29
Chart (2014) Peak
position
Slovenia (SloTop50)[12] 28
Chart (2015) Peak
position
Danish Singles Chart[13] 36
Poland (Polish Airplay Top 100)[14] 39
Slovenia (SloTop50)[15] 38
Chart (2016) Peak
position
Slovenia (SloTop50)[16] 22
Chart (2017) Peak
position
Germany (Official German Charts)[17] 18
Slovenia (SloTop50)[18] 15
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[19] 47
Chart (2018–19) Peak
position
Australia (ARIA)[20] 80
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[21] 16
Denmark (Tracklisten)[22] 34
Germany (Official German Charts)[23] 16
Italy (FIMI)[24] 79
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[25] 26
Poland (Polish Airplay Top 100)[26] 43
Slovenia (SloTop50)[27] 11
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[28] 36
Chart (2019–20) Peak
position
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[29] 15
Poland (Polish Airplay Top 100)[30] 50
Slovenia (SloTop50)[31] 17
UK Singles (Official Charts Company)[32] 86

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Denmark (IFPI Denmark)[33] Gold 45,000

^shipments figures based on certification alone

gollark: Lots? Minecraft is not an optimised game.
gollark: I don't believe SSHFS is very fast.
gollark: Just synchronise the files with syncthing or rsync+cron.
gollark: Oh wait, I already submitted that.
gollark: Idea: osmarkslisp-rs™.

References
  1. "The Official Charts Company - Queen - Thank God It's Christmas". Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  2. Lifton, Dave (24 December 2018). "Brian May Praises Freddie Mercury's 'Beautiful' and 'Understated' Vocal on Queen's Christmas Songs". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  3. "Queen release new animated video for 'Thank God It's Christmas' 35 years later". Gold. 18 December 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  4. "Queen - Thank God It's Christmas (Official Animated Video) - YouTube". Retrieved 18 December 2019.
  5. "everyhit.com search results". Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  6. "The Official Charts Company -". Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  7. "irishcharts.ie search results". Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  8. "Queen - Thank God It's Christmas - austriancharts.at". Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  9. "Ultratop.be – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  10. "charts-surfer.de search results". Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  11. "SloTop50: Slovenian official singles weekly chart" (in Slovenian). SloTop50. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  12. "SloTop50 – Slovenian official singles chart". slotop50.si. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  13. http://www.hitlisten.nu/default.asp?list=t40
  14. "Listy bestsellerów, wyróżnienia :: Związek Producentów Audio-Video". Polish Airplay Top 100. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  15. "SloTop50 – Slovenian official singles chart". slotop50.si. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  16. "SloTop50: Slovenian official singles weekly chart" (in Slovenian). SloTop50. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  17. "Offiziellecharts.de – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas". GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  18. "SloTop50 – Slovenian official singles chart". slotop50.si. Retrieved 29 August 2018.
  19. "Swisscharts.com – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas". Swiss Singles Chart. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  20. "ARIA Chart Watch #505". auspOp. 29 December 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
  21. "Austriancharts.at – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas" (in German). Ö3 Austria Top 40. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
  22. "Track Top-40 Uge 52, 2018". Hitlisten. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  23. "Offiziellecharts.de – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas". GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  24. "Italiancharts.com – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas". Top Digital Download. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  25. "Dutchcharts.nl – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  26. "Listy bestsellerów, wyróżnienia :: Związek Producentów Audio-Video". Polish Airplay Top 100. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  27. "SloTop50: Slovenian official singles weekly chart" (in Slovenian). SloTop50. Retrieved 24 December 2018.
  28. "Swisscharts.com – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas". Swiss Singles Chart. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  29. "Austriancharts.at – Queen – Thank God It's Christmas" (in German). Ö3 Austria Top 40. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  30. "Listy bestsellerów, wyróżnienia :: Związek Producentów Audio-Video". Polish Airplay Top 100. Retrieved 23 December 2019.
  31. "SloTop50 – Slovenian official singles chart". slotop50.si. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  32. "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
  33. "Certificeringer - Queen - Thank God It's Christmas" (in Danish). IFPI Denmark. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.