🎄I'm delighted to announce that my old 2000 Christmas song 'Sorry Baby (Christmas)' has been resurrected. After much work over the last 25 years it's almost ready for a 2025 release 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 I think was the day before, around the 23rd December 2000. 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' without a full set of lyrics. In 2001 the title became 'I'm sorry baby (it's Christmas)'. I then proceeded to write and tweak things and establish a structure for the song, plus another potential song title change. Around 2002/3, after making a basic instrumental music demo, I added some vocals with the help of Frankie Boulter, who worked at the same company as 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 song was shelved for many years too and last year (2024) I decided it needed to be completed.
The plan is to finish all the vocals by the end of August, then mix & master for a September 2025 release. That will give me scope to promote the song to radio stations world wide in good time for the Christmas festivities.
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 work in progress is almost complete🎅
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)
Keys/other instrument sequencing: Carl Dixon
(vibes, organ, trumpet, sax, trombone, harpsichord, accordion, glockenspiel, tubular bells, piano, strings, congas, toy melodica, bass, harp)
Tenor sax: Leonie Phillips
Artwork (on released version)
Jo Levine
Sleeve Art Compilation (on released version)
Michelle Dixon
Track Listing
1) stereo vocal radio mix
2) stereo instrumental radio mix
3) stereo vocal minimal mix
4) stereo instrumental minimal mix
5) mono vocal mix
6) mono instrumental mix
7) stereo vocal sounds like vinyl mix
8) stereo instrumental sounds like vinyl mix
9) stereo alternative vocal
10) early stereo 2002 instrumental demo
11) stereo vocal long version 1
12) stereo vocal long version 2
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
