Saturday Video Fun: Greg Lake - I Believe In Father Christmas (1975)

"They said there'd be snow at Christmas..." Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, released this ode to innocence at Christmas back in 1975. Lake, who was never one for understatement, pulled out all the stops for this one including a signature riff by Prokofiev, full orchestra and choir. Over the next several years there were at least three different versions of this song recorded by ELP all with stripped down arrangements. Lake even did a revised version at one point. The version here is the original Greg Lake single with all the orchestral and choral bombast intact.



When it first came out, the video was the subject of some controversy; principally shot in the Sinai Desert and West Bank of Israel, it included some footage of the Vietnam war. We have two bonus videos for you this week. In the first, Greg Lake and lyricist Pete Sinfield talk about writing the song.



Since it's Christmas, we dug up a live version of Emerson Lake & Palmer playing "Nutrocker" which is based on Tchaikovski's "Nutcracker". The reason that they look so incredibly young in this video is because it was shot when ELP first started out as a band, in 1971, this concert was in Belgium.

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