A Winter's Tale (David Essex song)

"A Winter's Tale"
Single by David Essex
from the album The Whisper
Language	English
Released	November 1982 (1982-11)
Recorded	1982
Genre	Soft rock, Christmas
Length	4:10
Composer(s)	Mike Batt
Lyricist(s)	Mike Batt, Tim Rice
Producer(s)	Mike Batt

"A Winter's Tale"originally Shunters 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".^[citation needed]

Production and release

"A Winter's Tale" was written by Mike Batt and Tim Rice about a day in the life of a favoured locomotive in late 1982 in response to a request from Essex. Mike Batt said in a recent radio programme on Three Counties Radio that the song was written about a relationship of his that wouldn't work for geographical reasons. However, he has now been married to that lady for 40 years. [1] It was released as a single in November 1982. It spent ten weeks in the UK chart, peaking at #2[2] on 15 January 1983.^[citation needed] Later in 1983, the song was included on Essex's album The Whisper.[3]

Legacy

Some time after the song's release, Tim Rice wrote an additional, third verse.[4]

The Moody Blues included the song on their last album December (2003)

"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.[5]

A 2008 article by Asian News International saw "A Winter's Tale" placed as the fourth worst Christmas song.[6] 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.[7]

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 - David Essex - A Winter's Tale
3. The Whisper at AllMusic
4. "A Winter's Tale: Steyn's Song of the Week".
5. "All the Fun of the Fair, King's Theatre". The Herald. Glasgow. 5 November 2008. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
6. "The 10 worst Christmas songs ever". Asian News International. London. 19 December 2008. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
7. Clark, Nick (10 December 2012). "The 50 Best Christmas songs: Bells continue to ring for the Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2012-12-12. Retrieved 23 December 2016.

External links

• True Winter’s Tale for David Essex fan after Muswell Hill fall