I believe in Father Christmas: Greg Lake. One more for the holiday!
Recorded by Lake of Emerson Lake and Palmer in 1975, it was his biggest solo hit.
The original video, shot partly in the Sinai desert and Qumran in the West Bank, also contains shots of the Vietnam War, leading to complaints that it should not be shown with light-hearted Christmas songs (the lyrics are certainly not light hearted, though!). These images of war are a violent backdrop to a peaceful-sounding song and create a hard-hitting message. Unfortunately those scenes are missing in this version, evidently sanitized away..you can find them on other YouTube versions (I picked this for best sound quality).
Wiki: “The instrumental riff between verses comes from the “Troika” portion of Sergei Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite written for a 1934 Soviet film, Lieutenant Kijé.”
For all ELP and prog rock fans, including David Haddad , who mentioned this song as a favorite.
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
David Haddad , thanks for bringing this song to my attention, I love it. This was a promotional video, for TV ads perhaps? I wonder what the oldest video on YouTube is 🙂
Greg Lake…A UK national treasure…
The first time I ever saw a rock/pop music video ( not film which was common and shown in theaters with the previews and on TV specials at least since the early 60s) on american TV was in the late 70s on Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert weekly show. This pioneering video was submitted by visionary legend David Bowie because he was on tour at the time and could not attend ( Rock Concert was a real live show, no lip synching). Shortly after videos became de rigueur in all types of genres.
Interesting info, thanks NEY MELLO ! Agree re. David Bowie..still love his original video 1969 for Space Oddity..he looked so young!
Rajini Rao thanks for tagging me this music video. Haven’t heard this tune before but I really like it. The sound and the guitar play does seem to have some Middle Eastern influence. I am not sure if it was Lake’s intention since the video was shot somewhere in the West Bank. When a song doesn’t have the support with multiple instruments but still sound good then it IS good. i.e. Brain May’s Love of my Life.
NEY MELLO Rajini Rao David Bowie is fantastic. In fact I was thinking about posting some Bowie’s song, even I am more into band performance. Love these Bowie’s best: Young American, Wild is the Wind , …Had a chance to see his live performance once. Fantastic vocal!
Tom Lee , as always, it will be interesting to see what you pick, and which version! 🙂 BTW, Bowie’s birthday is coming up: Jan 8 (Wikipedia has everything! )