It has been 21 years since Leigh Francis released Christmas banger Proper Crimbo and he has once again called in the big guns for his latest musical endeavour, Christmas Pigs.
Describing the track as a “celebration of Christmas cheer”, the Virgin Radio UK’s Drive Time Show host, 51, has enlisted the help of some of his celebrity mates for the star-studded accompanying music video.
All proceeds are going to raise money and awareness for Children with Cancer UK, a leading charity dedicated to childhood cancer research and support.
It’s a cause close to his heart as his own dad passed away from throat cancer at the age of 47 and two of his friends were recently diagnosed with the disease, including Phil, who Francis penned both this song and Proper Crimbo with.
Speaking to The Standard, he said: “My mate Phil said ‘int it funny because we started out making this homemade song, and it was homemade. I wrote it on a train in half an hour then sung it to my mate on a phone. He went okay, I’ve got it. We won’t be able to use your vocals though from your phone. I went ‘why?’ He said ‘because you can hear traffic in the background!’”
“Then I went to Leeds and recorded it, he’s a graphic designer so we’re in his design studio in the corner recording a Christmas song and then he got quite obsessed with it. Then one of my friends went ‘do you want some trumpet in it?’ I went ‘you can’t play trumpet, I was at your 50th when you got it! All you could do was play [the] Coronation Street [theme tune] to begin with!’ He said ‘well I can play it now and I can play banjo’. I said ‘can you?’ I said well we’ll have that banjo and we’ll have trumpet because it’s a really festive sound.
“Then another collage friend, her husband has done bassoon on it! I went ‘wow, everyone’s chipping in!’ Then my mate Tom, he mixes it, then my other graphic design mate Matthew he did the artwork for it.”
The next step was the video which features the likes of Paloma Faith, Paddy McGuinness, Alison Hammond, Josie Gibson, Emily Atack, Amanda Holden, The Hoosiers, CBBC puppet favourite Hacker T Dog and more.
There’s also a nod to Francis’ favourite debatable Christmas film Gremlins with an appearance from Billy actor Zach Galligan and Lord of the Rings actress Live Tyler doing her best Gizmo singing impression.
“I sent the message out to everyone that I knew and the first person to get back to me was Robbie Williams and he was the biggest name and he just said ‘what’s landscape? Is it that way?’ I went ‘yeah’ he said he was just laying on his sofa and would do it now and then he did it. Then slowly, there were coming in all these video messages from people on my phone,” he said in amazement.
Francis reached number 4 with Proper Crimbo when it was released in 2003, but notes that the music industry has changed a lot since then. The competition is also tough this year with a number of artists releasing Christmas tunes and festive staples such as Wham’s Last Christmas, Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas and Band Aid celebrating big milestones.
“When we did Proper Crimbo 20 years ago, we had that show [Bo Selecta] on the telly, that helped it I guess,” he mused. “I don’t have a show on the telly at the moment, I have a show on Virgin Radio which I constantly talk about the song on and plug it there.
“It seems to be the year where everyone has decided to do a Christmas song again because there was a patch where nobody was doing them.
“I find with the media, radio or MTV when they’re playing the videos, they normally play all of the older ones. They’ll go the 80s I guess and then after that they don’t really bother.”
Francis - who released his autobiography Leigh, Myself and I earlier this year - says regardless of where this one charts, he’s proud of the way everyone made it happen and that it’s all for a good cause.
“I used to say Proper Crimbo was my favourite Christmas song. I remember going into a pub and it was being played and I got all flushed and was so proud, but it means more when it’s a charity one I think,” he concluded.
Christmas Pigs by Leigh Francis and someone called Phil is available to stream and download now.
