This is only tangentially a Christmas song. The lyrics don’t refer to Christmas at all, and it’s only the fact that it was released in the run-up to Christmas and has a Christmas-themed video which makes it a Christmas song. But, for all that, it’s one of the best.

What’s maybe even more surprising is that a band like Frankie Goes to Hollywood could come up with something like this. It’s a far cry from their controversial first chart topping single, infamously banned by the BBC for being too explicit. Even so, watching the video for the first time I was fully expecting some kind of twist in the tail that subverts the story – a black Jesus, maybe, or putting the band into the picture in the stable. But no, the video plays a stylised nativity narrative straight down the line – this could appear in a Sunday school book, or form the basis of a primary school play, without any problems (other than, of course, the fact that the classic nativity play storyline is only loosely based on the gospel narratives themselves). Here’s the official video of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Power of Love:

I’ll protect you from the hooded claw, keep vampires from your door