Driving Home for Christmas
| "Driving Home for Christmas" | ||||
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| Single by Chris Rea | ||||
| Released | 1986 | |||
| Format | 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl, cassette, CD | |||
| Recorded | 1984 | |||
| Genre | Pop rock, Christmas | |||
| Length | 4:33 | |||
| Label | Magnet | |||
| Writer(s) | Chris Rea | |||
| Producer(s) | Chris Rea, Stuart Eales | |||
| Chris Rea singles chronology | ||||
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| "Driving Home for Christmas" | |
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| Single by Stacey Solomon | |
| Released | 18 December 2011 |
| Format | Digital download |
| Recorded | 2011 |
| Genre | Pop |
| Length | 4:01 |
| Label | Conehead Management Ltd |
| Writer(s) | Chris Rea |
"Driving Home for Christmas" is a popular single written by Chris Rea and released in 1986. The song peaked at #53 in the UK Single Chart in 1988, and re-entered the chart in 2007, peaking at #33. It reached a brand new peak of #26 in 2016. Although it had modest charting, the single has a brief chart appearance every year in the Top 40, and is featured among the Top 10 Christmas singles.
It was used in Christmas commercials for supermarket chain Iceland in 1997, 1998, and 2011 respectively, with the latter featuring a cover by Stacey Solomon. An alternative version of the single was released in Japan as "Snow".
In a live interview on the BBC Radio 4 programme Today on 16 December 2009 Rea said he wrote "Driving Home for Christmas" many years before he first recorded it. His wife had come down to London to drive him home to Middlesbrough in her Austin Mini to save money because it was cheaper to drive than travel by train. Inspiration for the song came as she and Rea were stuck in heavy traffic heading out of London with a long drive to Middlesbrough ahead of them. Rea said "Driving Home for Christmas" is a "car version of a carol".
In 2009, twenty-one years after the song was first released, an original video was made in aid of Shelter; all proceeds were donated to the charity. The celebrities who featured in the video were Trevor Eve Mike Read, David Hamilton, Kristian Digby, Gail Porter, Lizzie Cundy, Kenny Thomas, Ewen MacIntosh, Carol Decker, Matt Di Angelo, Mark Brennan, Giles Vickers-Jones and Lionel Blair. (Andy Abraham, Alexander O'Neal and Kirsten O'Brien were scheduled to appear but did not make the final cut). Of the project, Rea stated "I wanted to do something special this Christmas and what better way than to help keep a roof over people’s heads when they need it most – at Christmas. By teaming up with Shelter we can hopefully make a difference."
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Wikipedia