🎄I'm delighted to announce the release of my old year 2000 Christmas song 'Sorry Baby (Christmas)'. After much work over the last 25 years it's finally available for Christmas 2025 and features Frankie Boulter on lead vocals. Frankie's singing career goes back to 1980 where she performed in the electronic synth music band 'DATA'.
'Sorry Baby (Christmas)' evolved from an idea late 2000 after the passing of my good friends father in Hull. I was driving home after attending the funeral which was a few days before Christmas and thinking how much a sad day this would be for the family. The melody and some of the verse/chorus lyrics came to me in the car on the M1 southbound motorway around the Nottingham area. I had to call it something, so originally it was simply called 'St Nicholas' and that Logic Audio file created was dated 24th December 2000 without a full set of lyrics. Circa 2001 the title became 'I'm sorry baby (it's Christmas)' and at one time 'Sorry to admit (it's Christmas). I then proceeded to write and tweak things and establish a structure for the song, plus another song title change to 'Sorry Baby (Christmas). Around 2002/3, after making a basic instrumental music demo, I added some vocals with the help of Frankie who worked at the same company I did.
Over the years, more work was done with it and at one stage I decided I didn't like the beginning or the end of the song, so changed it. That took years, but was a big improvement. The later key change after the spoken part came around 2006. The song was shelved for many years too and last year (2024) I decided it needed to be completed.
There are a number of different versions and of particular interest the alternative vocal which has a nice lyric change in the second verse and the two longer versions which exploit the instrumentals cut together with the full vocals. The mono and alternative vocal versions have less instruments on for variety. The 'sounds like vinyl' and long versions are derivatives of the stereo radio mixes, so have all instruments. The demo goes back to the early days of the production with a different beginning idea and no key change after the bridge.
Big thanks to the backing singers who chipped in to help with this production (see names below), and also to Jo Levine whose wonderful artwork sums up the spirit of Christmas especially for children. Thank you Michelle too for collating Jo's picture into the Bandtraxs sleeve art format ready for release. When I first saw Jo's picture it reminded me of myself and brother as children looking out the window on Christmas Eve to see if we could locate Santa flying through the sky with his reindeers.
🎅
Lead Vocal
Frankie Boulter
Backing Vocals
(All UK except Heidi, USA)
Ian Nicklin
Lakshmi Hariprasad
Heidi Cron
Sara Coric
Lucy Dunkerley
Carl Dixon
❄
Musicians
Drums: Drummers of Motown/other
Guitars: Mark Baldwin (Nashville)
Tenor sax: Leonie Phillips
Keys/other instrument sequencing/programming: Carl Dixon
(vibes, organ, trumpet, sax, trombone, harpsichord, accordion, glockenspiel, tubular bells, piano, strings, congas, toy melodica, bass guitar, harp, Christmas bells, tambourine)
Artwork
Jo Levine
Sleeve Art Compilation
Michelle Dixon
Track Listing
1) stereo vocal radio mix GBXNE2500001
2) stereo instrumental radio mix GBXNE2500002
3) stereo vocal minimal mix GBXNE2500003
4) stereo instrumental minimal mix GBXNE2500004
5) mono vocal GBXNE2500005
6) mono instrumental GBXNE2500006
7) stereo vocal sounds like vinyl GBXNE2500007
8) stereo instrumental sounds like vinyl GBXNE2500008
9) stereo alternative vocal GBXNE2500009
10) early stereo 2002 instrumental demo GBXNE2500010
11) stereo vocal long version 1 GBXNE2500011
12) stereo vocal long version 2 GBXNE2500012
Written, produced arranged, mixed and mastered by Carl Dixon.
This song, song title, melody and chords, lyrical content has nothing to do with any other song, song title, pop group name, electronic game, motion picture or TV production. It started its journey in December 2000.
Dedicated to Arthur Taylor who sadly passed away just before Christmas 2000. He and the family were the inspiration for the song. I remember him fondly.
© Carl Dixon 2025
carl@bandtraxs.com
