Michael Taylor and Neil Summers, who present Music Therapy on Tameside Radio on Sunday evenings, round off 2021 with a Christmas message and a musical reflection of the past year.

By the powers of modern technology, if you missed our show on Sunday night, you have the opportunity to listen again whenever you like.

We played a really wild mix of Christmas songs, most of which you wouldn’t hear during the day on Tameside Radio’s fabulous playlist.

That’s not because we look down our noses at Fairytale of New York, Slade, Wizard and Maria Carey, but we just know we’re about trying to give Sunday night listeners something different.

We dug out Christmas gems from many artists we keep coming back to throughout the year - The Fall, Blossoms, Everything But The Girl, Sinead O’Connor, LCD Soundsystem and Badly Drawn Boy. And of course two from Saint Etienne.

For good measure, we also dug out Christmas Truce by Swedish power metal eccentrics Sabaton.

All of these bands, artists, collaborations, will at some point have sat down and thought maybe they could create that breakthrough by catching the public mood at this time of year with a song that evokes the spirit of Christmas, looking after one another, supporting your family and having a bit of a reset.

It got me thinking about our show’s culture, what Neil and I stand for, what we project. I know that might sound a bit grand, but you have to do something for a reason.

Maybe it’s a bit of the Christmas spirit all year round.

We started out doing this show because we like bringing a bit of therapeutic cheer to Sunday night radio.

We’re both big believers in the power of music to lift a mood, make people happy or sad, even if it’s just for a moment. In so doing we also hope that finding something new and different can help anyone listening to just broaden their mind a bit. To appreciate what joy there is in the world. 

We also dropped a couple of tunes that high light some of the sad sides of Christmas; the people on their own, poorly from this miserable virus, or down on their luck.

That must feel so much worse in the bleak midwinter when everyone else is having fun. The message there is - it’s OK not to be OK. But there’s help out there if you need it.

But everything about this radio station and this newspaper is embedded in the best values of a community like Tameside and Glossop.

The leaders of our country have been trusted to deliver us out of these really grim two years and there’s a sense of anger everywhere I go at the moment that they’ve let us down by setting a poor personal example.

Hopefully, there will be leaders on every street, every estate, every corner shop, and in every newspaper office, who can show a better example of love and kindness. 

All we can do on this occasion is give you some songs and our own personal message of love.

Look after each other out there, and have a great Christmas.

You can listen to Michael Taylor and Neil Summers on Music Therapy on Tameside Radio 103.6FM on Sunday evenings from 9pm to 11pm. Click here to subscribe and catch up on previous shows.

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