"Thank God It's Christmas" was mainly written by Queen drummer Roger Taylor. However, when he found himself struggling to come up with a chorus he asked the band's lead guitarist, Brian May, to help him out. When the pair finished the tune they presented it to Freddie Mercury. It was the vocalist's ability to pull back for that song which Brian May remembers. He told Ultimate Classic Rock: "(Freddie) loved it and did a beautiful vocal. I think it's just the most understated vocal, and I love it, you know."
The song was released on November 27, 1984 and spent six weeks in the UK charts over Christmas 1984 and the New Year of 1985, peaking at #21. Queen were big in the mid-1980s in their home country, so the song's relative lack of success is surprising. May believes this is because they didn't film a promotional video for their festive tune. He said: "The funny thing is, it doesn't get that much attention in Britain as a Christmas single, because it doesn't have a video. Everything's about video these days and we never made a video for that song. It's all in your mind. But I'm very fond of it. I think it's a very different kind of Christmas song."
Another contributing factor for the song's relative lack of success was it was released the same time as Band-Aid's charity song "Do They Know It's Christmas?."
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