Shakin Stevens’ Christmas song writer, Bob Heatlie: Snow wasn’t falling all around me and children weren’t playing, having fun… but I still knew it was a hit

It has become an enduring Christmas classic with a newly awarded Royal seal of approval but the unmistakable first notes of Merry Christmas Everyone came from an Edinburgh garage.

Shakin’ Stevens was asked to perform his No 1 hit – which reached the top of the charts 35 years ago – for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge last Monday as they travelled from London to Edinburgh to begin their tour of thanking key workers for their pandemic efforts.

Shaky revealed afterwards that Prince William and Kate had requested the song, a fact that delighted its writer, Bob Heatlie. “It was unbelievable when I saw Shaky playing it to Prince William, just great,” said Bob, speaking from his home in Edinburgh. “It’s incredible to think Prince William might have been humming along to the tune.

“I’m finding it hard to believe it’s been 35 years since the song was released, but I suppose it’s a reminder that time just keeps going and going.”

Bob had already written a couple of hits for Shaky – Cry Just A Little Bit and Breaking Up My Heart – when he decided to come up with a festive song for the Welsh singer.

“I sat down to try to write a Christmas song because I knew if you could have a hit at that time of year then it would carry on forever,” said Bob, 74. “As I was working on the song, I thought ‘wow, this is a big one’. I just felt it. There are hooks everywhere in the song, even the introduction is a big hook. It’s very commercial sounding and I think it’s the melody that makes it so memorable for people.”

Bob wrote the song in his home studio, a garage he could afford to have converted after the success of his first songwriting hit, Japanese Boy, a No 1 for Aneka – also known as Scots folk singer Mary Sandeman – in 1981.

“My garage is soundproofed, which makes it even hotter, and it was already a July heatwave when I started writing it,” he laughed. “I was wearing shorts and sweating like a pig as I was putting bells down on the demo. But it didn’t take me long to write it, no more than a week, coming back and forth to it over a few days.”

Shakin’ Stevens had the last of his four No 1 singles with Merry Christmas Everyone, following Green Door, This Ole House and Oh Julie, and felt it was a winner the moment he listened to it.

“When I first heard the track after Bob sent it down, I knew instantly – it had the tune, the lyrics, the full package, and I could see it appealing to just about everyone,” Shaky recalled.

“We recorded the track and it was going to come out in time for Christmas, but then we heard about Band Aid and we thought it would be silly to release it at the same time.

“Band Aid was for a great cause, so we decided to hold it back and wait until the following year, 1985, before releasing it. It went to No 1 for Christmas, and we were all over the moon. If everything else fails, having a hit Christmas song means you are remembered at the end of the year, every year.”

Bob agrees the royalties from the song are a nice bonus to look forward to every year, but he says the song didn’t make him a rich man.

He said: “I didn’t have a good deal with EMI Music Publishing and I was naïve in those days – I would just sign a contract. That was the way it was back then and the writers were cut short a bit, but the song has still been good to me.”

Bob’s musical life began when his dad taught him to play the saxophone when he was six years old. He later took up the drums and played in his dad’s band, before going on to perform in various Edinburgh pop groups.

He was working on a Gaelic album with Mary Sandeman when she asked him to write her a song that would go into the charts. Inspired by the vocal scales Mary would warm up with, Bob came up with the idea for Japanese Boy, which became a surprise No 1 in August 1981 and set him on the road to becoming a songwriter.

Bob, who still keeps in touch with Shaky and has written a new song for him, says hearing Merry Christmas Everyone on the TV or radio still puts a smile on his face 35 years after it topped the Christmas charts.

“It’s a big buzz when you see people having a good time because of it,” he added. “When I see people singing along to it when I’m in the supermarket, I want to tell them I wrote it, but they would think I was nuts. There’s something about Christmas songs.

“I love the sound of them, everything from Bing Crosby to Slade, and though I’ve become a grumpy old guy it always cheers me up when I hear Merry Christmas Everyone, and that’s a wonderful feeling.”