Greg Lake – I Believe In Father Christmas

The Riff Came From Tuning His Guitar Down One String

Released in November 1975 as Greg Lake’s debut solo single, “I Believe in Father Christmas” peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, held from the Christmas number one by Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The track also reached number seventeen in Ireland and number ninety-eight in Australia, and returned to the UK chart in both 1984 and 1986, charting at eighty-four and ninety-eight respectively. What most fans don’t know is that Lake discovered the song’s distinctive cascading riff entirely by accident after tuning the bottom E string of his guitar down to D at his west London home. The riff haunted him for days until he was driving one day and absentmindedly hummed “Jingle Bells” over it, suddenly realizing the tune fit perfectly. That eureka moment transformed a random guitar experiment into what became one of Britain’s most enduring Christmas classics, despite being written as a protest against Christmas commercialization rather than a celebration of it.

The single entered the UK chart in early December 1975 and quickly climbed to number two, where it spent the final week before Christmas. Queen’s six-week reign at number one with “Bohemian Rhapsody” blocked Lake from the top spot, though he later admitted he couldn’t complain about losing to one of the greatest records ever made, adding he would’ve been pissed off if he’d been beaten by Cliff Richard. The track spent several weeks on the chart initially, then returned in 1984 reaching eighty-four and again in 1986 hitting ninety-eight, demonstrating its enduring appeal. In Ireland, it peaked at seventeen during its December 1975 release. The song performed disappointingly in Australia, barely scraping into the bottom of the chart at ninety-eight. When finally given a proper UK reissue in 1983 after ELP had disbanded, it managed only number sixty, and a 1991 rerelease fared slightly better without matching the original’s impact. The song’s commercial longevity proved more valuable than its peak position, with Lake revealing in a 2005 Guardian letter that September royalty checks were lovely but not quite enough to buy a Caribbean island.

Lake wrote the music at his west London home during August 1975, experimenting with his twelve-string guitar after detuning one string. He told Uncut magazine in 2011 that he couldn’t place what the song was about initially despite having this cascading riff stuck in his head. Then while driving, he unconsciously hummed “Jingle Bells” and realized it fit perfectly, making him wonder if this could be a Christmas song. He contacted Peter Sinfield, his former King Crimson bandmate who’d written lyrics for numerous ELP tracks, to collaborate on words. Sinfield has given a slightly different version of events, claiming he heard Lake play the riff and suggested it sounded like a Christmas song, with Lake initially resistant because it seemed out of character. Sinfield based the lyrics partially on a childhood memory of coming downstairs at age eight to see a magnificent Christmas tree his mother had decorated, capturing that lost innocence. The song protested commercialization eroding Christmas’s authentic meaning, though many misinterpreted it as anti-religious. Lake explained he found it appalling when people said Christmas was politically incorrect and should be called the Holiday Season.

Lake recorded the track at Abbey Road Studios in London on August twenty-fourth and thirtieth, 1975, during a sweltering late summer heatwave. He co-produced with Sinfield, handling vocals and twelve-string guitar while Keith Emerson contributed keyboards. The orchestral arrangement came from Godfrey Salmon, who conducted approximately ninety-five members of the London Symphony Orchestra plus a thirty-piece choir. The instrumental sections between verses incorporated the “Troika” portion of Sergei Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite from 1934, suggested by Emerson to lighten the mood. Salmon refused to wear a Father Christmas outfit despite Lake erecting a large Christmas tree in the studio with presents underneath to evoke holiday spirit during the August heat. Things descended into chaos during the second session when someone actually booked a fan dancer, who immediately buried the lead violinist’s face in her chest. Some orchestra members rushed forward for a better view while the violinist went bright red, creating total havoc. Engineer John Kurlander captured the ensemble’s performance essentially in a single take despite the distractions.

The track appeared on Lake’s solo contribution to ELP’s 1977 album Works Volume 1, though by then it had already achieved standalone success as a single. A stripped-down version featuring the full ELP trio appeared on Works Volume 2 later in 1977, with that sparser arrangement emphasizing the song’s melancholic core. Lake recorded it again in 1993 for the ELP box set The Return of the Manticore, and a fourth time in 2002 for the compilation A Classic Rock Christmas. The song has appeared on numerous ELP and Christmas compilations over the decades, with a 1995 EP titled I Believe in Father Christmas including both the original single and the Works Volume II version. Rolling Stone ranked it number three hundred six on their five hundred greatest songs of all time list in 2004, while BBC Radio 2 placed it forty-third on their best songs ever released by any artist, remarkable recognition for what was essentially a one-off solo single.

The promotional video was filmed in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and at the Dead Sea Scrolls caves in Qumran in the West Bank, with tour manager Andrew Lane, a former soldier in the Six-Day War, organizing the shoot. Lake performed the song solo with acoustic guitar amid stark desert landscapes and treacherous cliff faces, with the Dead Sea Scrolls cave located halfway up a sheer rock face accessible only by a narrow inclined path. The director added stock footage from the Vietnam War and Six-Day War, which the BBC initially insisted be removed before airing. Manager Stewart Young refused, and the video aired complete on Top of the Pops including the war footage. The heat proved challenging, with keeping the sixteen-millimeter film stock cool being a major concern. Lake later admitted he was mad to attempt the shoot, calling it treacherous in retrospect. The original film was restored to 4K for Christmas 2020, with technicians manually cleaning it and recreating damaged frames.

“I Believe in Father Christmas” endures as one of rock’s most beautiful yet misunderstood seasonal songs, managing to protest commercialization while becoming a commercial standard itself. Lake’s quote about being beaten by one of the greatest records ever made reveals both grace and competitive fire, accepting second place to “Bohemian Rhapsody” while drawing the line at Cliff Richard. The accidental discovery of the riff through guitar retuning demonstrates how experimentation breeds innovation, and how sometimes the best ideas arrive when you’re not forcing them. What began as a cascading guitar figure heard while driving transformed into a meditation on lost innocence that continues resonating fifty years later, proving that songs protesting Christmas commercialization can themselves become part of the seasonal soundtrack without contradiction. The September royalty checks may not buy Caribbean islands, but they’ve ensured Greg Lake’s name remains synonymous with Christmas for generations who never heard Emerson, Lake & Palmer.