Following the tradition of calling in favours from family, Chris asked his son Will to record himself singing this re-written version of everyone’s old favourite carol ‘In the bleak midwinter’… Will (who is a trad music player in various bands) had sung this version previously and does a simply stunning version here, somehow more powerful in its stark urban simplicity.

He recorded it on his phone inside a Glasgow tenement flat which he and his girlfriend Rachel are in the middle of renovating. It has no kitchen or bathroom, but it does have a piano.

The words are below…

Bleak midwinter

.

What can I give him, wealthy as I am?

Does he need an i-phone or a well-aged Parma ham?

Should I bring him trainers, a pair of brand-new jeans?

Or Halo for the X-box (whatever the hell that means)

.

In a tower block in Camden, a woman breaks her heart

Her credit score is hopeless, her marriage fell apart

Her cupboards all lie empty, her clothes are wafer thin

Her kids can thank the food bank for turkey from a tin

.

If I were a kind man, I would bring good cheer

I would house the homeless, if for only once a year

I’d buy my cards from Oxfam, for virtue is no sin

I’d send some Christmas pudding to poor old Tiny Tim

.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty winds still moan

And Mr Wilson’s waited ages to get the council on the phone

He’s worried cos his boiler has given up the ghost

And since Mabel got dementia, she feels cold more than most

.

If I were a wise man, I would do my part

I’d sell that gold and incense and invest it for a start

In gilt-edged annuities and solid pension schemes

For without good fiscal planning, what can ever be redeemed?

.

In a lock-up by the roadside a bastard-child is born

To another teenage mother whose future looks forlorn

A host of heavenly angels up high in star-strewn sky

Sing blue-scale hallelujahs as lorries thunder by