Moving Down the Line

It’s a funny how a song can sneak up on you.

Two things I love most about the Christmas season are the lights and the beautiful music. You can pretty much keep the rest of the madness, but don’t take away those fabulous decorations or my holiday tunes.

My favorites songs include “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” and “O Holy Night,” which can bring tears to my eyes if you get me in the right mood.

Most of the more modern holiday songs leave me cold, though I must confess that I am one of the few people on earth who actually likes “All I Want for Christmas is You,” even though it was voted the most annoying Christmas song in 2019.

I’ll certainly take Mariah Carey's song over “Grandma Got run over by a reindeer,” any day of the week, and don’t even get me started on “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey,” which is so bad it could turn the Pope into an atheist.

And then we have “Driving Home for Christmas”, Chris Rea’s holiday song that was released in 1986, re-recorded in 1988, and which I only heard a few years ago.

Unlike most Christmas songs, this one is low key and mellow.

There are no choirs or symphonies. There’s no talk of presents or partying; it doesn’t go on about the most wonderful time of the year.

As the title implies, this is simply a guy trying to get home for the holidays.

“I'm driving home for Christmas, oh, I can't wait to see those faces…”

Rea, a British songwriter whose biggest U.S. hit was the 1978 single “Fool (If You Think It’s Over),” described “Driving Home for Christmas” as a car version of a carol.

A Thousand Memories

He said he wrote the song one snowy night while he was stuck in a traffic jam, which is a great way of passing the time. Usually when I'm in a traffic jam, I wail like Jacob Marley's ghost.

Rea said he started looking at the other drivers, who all looked so miserable, so he started jokingly singing “we're driving home for Christmas..."

Whenever the streetlights shone inside the car, he started writing down lyrics.

The song first came to my attention a few years ago through a YouTube video which features the tune playing over a footage of a truck driving through a series of snow-covered scenes.

The song didn’t make much of an impression on me when I first heard it, but, for whatever reason, I’m starting to enjoy it more this year.

You can hear the longing and loneliness when Rea says, “so I sing for you, though you can’t hear me.”

“Driving home Christmas,” he sings, “with a thousand memories.”

I especially like the line where Rea says, “I take a look at the driver next to me, he’s just the same.”

It's a reminder that we all crave love and family, especially at this time of the year.

I don’t think the song is as popular here in the U.S., but a recent survey found that it was the third most popular Christmas song in Britain, coming in behind “Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues and—well, what do you do know?—"All I want for Christmas is You.”

Of course, there’s a flip side to every story and this one has a rather ironic twist.

A study by Brunel University London, Coventry University and the Economic and Social Research Council found that “Driving Home for Christmas” may be too slow to suitably stimulate motorists on monotonous highway trips.

Okay, fine, so wait until you arrive before listening to “Driving Home for Christmas.”

And while you’re on the road, you blast “All I want for Christmas is You” as loud as possible.