In case you get caught in site visitors attempting to make it house to see household this Christmas, the probabilities are there’s one festive traditional you’ll be buzzing alongside to whereas doing all your finest to not take your frustrations out on fellow motorists.
Chris Rea’s 1986 tune Driving Residence For Christmas has turn out to be indelibly related to lengthy festive journeys – and there’s an opportunity you may get to see the veteran rocker himself belting the track out on the roads this winter. “I nonetheless sing it at different drivers after I’m caught on the motorway,” he reveals right now. “They love that!”
Though the hit is now rightly thought to be a normal to be performed alongside different seasonal staples like Mariah Carey’s All I Need For Christmas Is You, Slade’s Merry Xmas Everyone and Final Christmas by Wham!
Terribly, Rea had no thought it’d turn out to be such a favorite.
Certainly, the veteran rocker initially wished one other star to sing concerning the joys of British site visitors jams. Rea, who wrote Driving Residence For Christmas along with his longtime keyboard participant Max Middleton, recollects: “Me and Max thought we’d attempt to get it to Van Morrison, as we thought it’d be his form of factor. That’s why we wrote it in Van’s key to sing – not mine. We solely recorded it ourselves simply to listen to what it will sound like.”
Its melody was impressed by a simple listening tune, A Stroll In The Black Forest, by German pianist Horst Jankowski. Rea by no means heard from Morrison and isn’t satisfied the Brown Eyed Lady singer ever received to listen to about his potential Christmas hit.
As an alternative, Rea says: “I wrote Driving Residence For Christmas in 1978, and it sat on the shelf for eight years, till somebody at my file label, Magnet, put it on the B-side of my single, Good day Pal. Then a DJ picked up on it, and began enjoying it as a substitute of Good day Pal – and I nonetheless don’t understand how or why they did that.”
Solely then did Rea realise the track’s potential, re-recording it as a single in 1988. Extremely, it solely reached No 53 and didn’t break the Prime 40 till 2007, when it made No 33. Its best-ever chart place was No 10, in 2021, 43 years after Rea first penned the track.
“With streaming, it’s began going into the Prime 40 yr after yr,” explains Rea, 74. “It’s been featured in Gavin And Stacey and the homeless charity, Shelter, has used it too. It’s solely actually since streaming that I’ve seen the way it’s turn out to be a staple for everybody.”
Of its attraction, Rea causes: “It’s received a narrative everybody can relate to: you’re caught in site visitors, when all you wish to do is to get house and be together with your family members. Everybody within the nation is doing the identical factor on the identical time.
“It’s a irritating track, nevertheless it’s additionally hopeful and comforting. It’s humorous, as a result of I’d simply been banned from driving after I wrote it. However I used to be feeling good on the time too, and other people say they’ll hear that infectious feelgood temper after they hear it.”
Unsurprisingly, Rea is a fan of Christmas, laughing: “I adore it, why wouldn’t you?” However he solely belatedly performed Driving Residence For Christmas for the primary time in December 2014, at a live performance at Hammersmith Apollo.
“My street crew saved asking me to play it,” admits Rea. “I stated: ‘Alright, however we’re doing it correctly or in no way.’” Taking part in the track “correctly” meant that Rea employed a number of cannons to blast pretend snow into the 5,000-strong crowd. He chuckles: “It was good, the place went nuts. The noise was deafening, and we lined everybody with pretend snow. However I received fined £12,000 for the clean-up afterwards! I used to be extra within the Christmas spirit than the venue was.”
Sadly, that present proved to be considered one of Rea’s most up-to-date performances. In 2016, Rea suffered a stroke, which diminished the motion in his arms and fingers. He additionally endured slurred speech. The singer recovered effectively sufficient to go on tour the next yr. Nonetheless, he collapsed on stage throughout a gig in Oxford and hasn’t carried out in public since.
He misses not being on stage, saying: “It’s at all times good to attach with followers. Plus, I’m rockier stay than on my albums, so it’s at all times good to blast issues out louder.” However Rea reveals he’s begun writing new music now that his well being is slowly recovering, revealing: “I’ve been attempting just a few various things out: lengthy blues and jazz instrumentals. I’m going again to my roots and seeing the place they take me subsequent.” He additionally doesn’t rule out a 3rd quantity of his platinum-selling albums The Highway To Hell Components 1 and a couple of, noting: “Take a look at the information. We could be on Half 3 now.”
Rea’s roots are in Middlesbrough, the place his Italian father Camillo Rea’s enterprise working a series of cafes and a profitable ice-cream manufacturing facility meant the Rea title was already well-known regionally.
Certainly one of seven kids, Chris studied journalism at a neighborhood school, earlier than turning to music when he purchased his first guitar in his early twenties.
His first main single, Idiot (If You Suppose It’s Over), reached No 30 in 1978. “I labored out the best way to write hits early on,” he says. “However writing songs is at all times like discovering issues about your self. It’s at all times me, however there are at all times new issues to seek out out, and that’s what I’m continually on the lookout for. I taught myself the best way to play guitar too, which meant I didn’t need to comply with anyone else’s guidelines.”
That diffident angle helps clarify why Rea didn’t capitalise on Idiot (If You Suppose it’s Over)’s success within the US, the place it reached No 12 and earned Rea a Grammy nomination as Finest New Artist. Reasonably than attempt to obtain additional success, Rea targeting his profession taking off again house. He explains: “I couldn’t comply with the file firm’s guidelines for having extra hits within the States. There would have been too many restrictions on the form of songs I wished to put in writing.”
Rea was simply 33 when he had his first main well being scare. He was identified with pancreatic most cancers, spending 32 weeks in hospital earlier than ultimately recovering. All through his battles and successes, Rea has loved the help of his spouse Joan. They met aged simply 16 in Middlesbrough and have two daughters, Josephine and Julia.
“On daily basis, me and Joan nonetheless really feel 16,” he says. “We’re so fortunate we nonetheless really feel the identical means. Our daughters hate how gooey we’re with one another, although!”
The intensive remedy for most cancers has left Rea with diabetes, requiring day by day injections. It has given him additional perspective on his profession, telling Saga in 2024: “I’ve had so many operations, I’ve misplaced rely. However I’ve had to take a look at the great it’s introduced me too. I discovered who my actual mates have been after I was in hospital.”
Chris and Joan stay in Berkshire, the place their house has few mementoes of Rea’s fame. He insists: “I give all my gold discs to charity, as that type of factor doesn’t curiosity me. It’s the music that counts, and I’m proudest of that.”
Regardless of his critical repute, Rea is an enormous fan of Bob Mortimer, the man Middlesbrough comic whose invented declare that Rea as soon as suggested Mortimer to crack an egg into a shower as a reviving tonic was one of many traditional tales on BBC1’s Would I Lie To You. “I don’t understand how Bob’s thoughts works,” laughs Rea. “Being on Bob’s Gone Fishing present with Paul Whitehouse was such amusing. It was so good when Bob stated he’d by no means heard anybody from Middlesbrough on the radio earlier than me.”
Since Driving Residence For Christmas, Rea has amassed sufficient songs that he’s simply launched his first festive file, The Christmas Album, saying: “Writing Christmas songs is an effective problem, as I’m on the lookout for methods to keep away from cliché, whereas working in a protracted songwriting custom.”
And a second quantity of Christmas songs may nonetheless occur. Reassuring followers he’s on the mend, Rea insists: “There’s loads of music left in me but.”
The Christmas Album and Driving Residence For Christmas 7″ single are out now on Warner
