"Britain isn't a great island for road songs. It's not big enough, really, for you to hit the road and drive. And if you try, you may just end up stuck in traffic on the A1, where the late Chris Rea found himself in Christmas 1978, his wife behind the wheel of her Mini, he beside her as they tried to get from Abbey Road Studios in London to their home in Middlesbrough, 220 miles away."
"He wrote the song on a whim, scribbling down the lyrics whenever passing headlights illuminated the car interior (as he told this paper's Dave Simpson in 2016), then put it away with his other unfinished scraps when he got home. Eight years later, he paired his lyric with some jazzy chords he'd written and a song was born. At first, he shoved it on a B-side, but in 1988 he rerecorded it for a compilation, put it out as a single,"
"It was a slow burner because it's not grand. Christmas songs tend to wallop the listener over the head with emotion often joy, usually signified by copying the sound of A Christmas Gift to You by Phil Spector down to the last sleigh bell. Sometimes it's a particularly overwrought love, as on The Power of Love, or Stay Another Day, or almost all X Factor winners. They insist on a hugeness of emotion to match the symbolism of the season."
Britain's size limits the appeal of traditional road songs. Chris Rea wrote lyrics during a Christmas 1978 traffic jam on the A1 while traveling from Abbey Road Studios to Middlesbrough, scribbling lines when headlights lit the car. He shelved the fragment with other unfinished scraps and, eight years later, paired it with jazzy chords to form a song. Initially a B-side, he rerecorded it for a 1988 compilation and released it as a single; it became a gradual, enduring hit rather than an instant success. The song's understated, pre-Spector sonic palette and banal, patient lyricism contrast with the bombastic emotions typical of contemporary Christmas hits.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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