Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Adele.
These are the names that scouse comedian Adam Rowe and Preston-born comic Dan Nightingale are competing with to get the Christmas number one spot this year.
Who are they?
The two stand-ups are a big name in UK comedy.
Dan has been on the circuit for almost two decades and is well respected by lots of top UK comics.
Adam has been going since 2010 and is appearing on Live at the Apollo this month. He has previously appeared on TV shows such as The Stand Up Sketch Show and Roast Battle UK.
Together, they host the hit podcast ‘Have a Word‘, which they started just before the first lockdown in 2020.
Their dedicated fanbase is rapidly growing and their patreon, where fans can subscribe to get exclusive content, recently hit the milestone of 7000 patrons.
This places them in the top 100 patreon creators worldwide.
What is the song about?
They have many recurring jokes on their podcast, one of the most popular being ‘Laura’s Gone’ where Adam gives Dan a scenario in which Dan’s wife, Laura, has left him.
Dan replies with “Where’s she gone?” Which begins a journey of beautiful nonsense from Adam describing Laura travelling to far countries with the kids to marry oil barons or theme park owners.
There are two producers on the podcast, Carl Riegler, and Finnlay (Finn) Kulavuz.
Finn is a young musician and earlier this year he decided to make a short demo turning the Laura’s Gone joke into a song.
The song is a huge hit with fans of the pod and Finn has since performed the song at live shows to crowds of thousands of dedicated supporters.
Adam and Dan made the decision to turn the song into a professionally recorded track and try to get it to Christmas number one.
The whole Have a Word team spent a day at The Motor Museum Recording Studio in Liverpool recording and producing the song.
They are giving 100% of the profits that come from the song to charity. Half will be given to the Liverpool charity Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice.
The other half will be given to The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust (Chect).
NEW PINNED TWEET!
We’re going for Christmas Number One!!! We’re raising money for two boss children’s charities in the process, so please pre-order it. 🙏🏼
Music video: https://t.co/9ZJS77Wg8L
Apple pre-order: https://t.co/kJ3eDFAHfJ
Amazon pre-order: https://t.co/CyTlwn154n pic.twitter.com/0YWPQZBVnO— Have A Word (@Haveawordpod) December 2, 2021
After announcing the pre-orders for ‘Laura’s Gone’, they were met with the news that music superstars Ed Sheeran Elton John were teaming up. They were already going up against Adele, who released her first album in six years.
This is making their push even harder, but they believe they can get the number one spot.
“We’ve got Elton John, Ed Sheeran, and Adele to deal with here. And we need you lot to help us beat them. Because lets be honest, they’ve had enough.” – Adam Rowe in a message to Have a Word fans.
They are surprisingly in with a realistic chance.
They are currently third favourites at most bookmakers to get the spot. Ahead of them is only the team of Elton and Ed, and LadBaby.
The latter is yet to announce if he is releasing a song this year, but has reached Christmas number one in each of the last three years.
In a recent episode, Dan did a callout video in typical Have a Word fashion. He directed it at Ed Sheeran, Elton John and Adele.
EARLY ACCESS IS LIVE🚨
This week the amazing @paulmccaffreys joined us on the couch. We spoke about dominatrix, killing farm animals, Gillian McKeith, Christmas No.1 , road rage & sending bottles of piss.Dan has got a message for our Xmas No.1 rivals…https://t.co/XSY1WskhJQ pic.twitter.com/nAwXDnOi3u
— Have A Word (@Haveawordpod) December 4, 2021
There is little to no mention of ‘Laura’s Gone’ in mainstream media in stories about potential Christmas number ones.
The biggest media outlet that has reported on the podcasts’ bid is LadBible. Adam believes the podcast are being vastly underestimated.
The music video for ‘Merry Christmas’, was released last week. The dedicated ‘Lid Army’ as the Have a Word fans are called, filled the comments in Elton John’s twitter post.
They relentlessly spammed the link to the ‘Laura’s Gone’ music video and told people to listen to that instead.
The Have a Word fans on Twitter have been sharing screenshots of their pre-orders of the songs. However, going off the social media numbers, Have a Word still have a mountain to climb.
The ‘Merry Christmas’ music video is almost on 15 million YouTube views, and the ‘Laura’s Gone’ video is only on 30 thousand so far.
The music video for ‘Laura’s Gone’ is now on YouTube and the song is available for pre-order on iTunes and Amazon, with the official release coming December 17.
