There's No Snow Here (At Christmas Time) by The Delltones

'There’s No Snow Here (At Christmas Time)' is a Christmas song paying homage to our Southern Hemisphere festive style. The cover for the single reinforces this sentiment with illustrations depicting Christmas Day at Sydney’s Bronte beach, complete with sumptuous fresh prawns and tropical fruits.

Penned and performed by The Delltones in 1986, the record’s production is indicative of the style of the day with its driving synth bassline, programmed electronic drums and mandatory snare drum placed just below the vocal level in the mix. The reverb-saturated saxophone solo also gives us a clue we are in the 1980s. The B-side features a cover of the John Lennon-Yoko Ono classic ‘Happy Christmas (War is Over)’.

The Delltones began in 1958 with their distinctive vocal harmonies in the rhythm and blues ‘doo wop’ style of the 1940s. Fast forward 60 years and the band has a back catalogue of 20 albums and hold the title of Australia’s longest-running performing band with an original member (Pee Wee Wilson). At the age of 78, Wilson is still entrancing Australian audiences.

A live version of ‘There’s No Snow Here (At Christmas time)’ appears on the album Carols in the Domain, also recorded in 1986. Carols in the Domain is one of Australia’s largest free public events and began in 1983.