Why East 17's 'Stay Another Day' almost wasn't released
Tony Mortimer joined Tom and Kat on Magic Radio
30 years ago, East 17 had huge success with their Christmas hit 'Stay Another Day', however it could have been very different as the song wasn't intended to be a Christmas hit, or to be released at all!
Tony Mortimer, who was part of East 17, and the songwriter on this Christmas classic joined Tom and Kat on Magic Radio to talk about the unintended Christmas song, and the heartbreaking inspiration behind the song.
The Magic Of Christmas performer who has previously opened up about the song's inspiration being his brother's suicide, went on to tell us: "I think that (inspiration) kind of gave me a bit of honesty in the lyrics, that perhaps I wouldn't have done, and I might have tried to be a bit clever with the lyrics, but it worked.
"Sometimes, because of the story and where it came from and that I do, I feel like I want to apologise to the public, because there's so many happier Christmas songs."
He went on to explain why the song almost didn't get released.
"It was about my brother's suicide, that’s what inspired it and I thought, well I'm going to write a ballad, and you always draw on ideas. And I thought, OK, I'm going to write about that and then it's going to be kind of an ambiguous love song, but it's drawn on a lot of pain of missing someone and stuff like that. It just worked, you know, and it was never to be released. It really wasn't, never ever ever to be released.
"And I remember Tom came in, the manager, and he was listening to some of the songs I'd written and he went, that's a Christmas Number 1. And I went ‘no no no, Tom we’re not releasing that are we?’ That's a little ballad alright, no one releases a ballad, we're kind of an up tempo dance group."
He continued: "We weren't a soft ballad thing, so it was going against the grain of everything, but everyone that heard it... It was really annoying, they’re going, ‘I really like that’, the record company, ‘I really like that’, I'm like, ‘can we all just stop liking that song?’
"It's very personal and it went on for weeks and I didn't tell anyone what it was about and then it leaked out through one interview and then, you know, and I thought, oh, my parents are going to kill me, you know, because it brought back so many memories.
"I love that people love it. They could have hated it."
Back in November 1994 'Stay Another Day' was released and quickly became popular with fans, reaching Number 1 in time for Christmas, fighting off competition from Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'.
Watch the original music video for 'Stay Another Day'
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Try out our Christmas song lyric quiz
Lyrics...
Guess the song from these lyrics, and then scroll down for the answers:
1) "This year, to save me from tears I'll give it to someone special."
2) "Let the Christmas spirit ring, later we'll have some pumpkin pie."
3) "Santa Claus won't make me happy with a toy on Christmas Day."
4) "You know that sweet Santa Clause is on the way."
5) "Feed the world."
6) "I've got 5 more nights until you're next to me, 4 more days of being lonely."
7) "So this is Xmas and what have you done."
8) "Look to the future now, It's only just begun."
9) "You were handsome, you were pretty, Queen of New York City."
10) "Eat, drink and be merry, come along with me."
11) "Baby if you've got to go away, don't think I could take the pain."
12) "Soon the bells will start and the thing that'll make 'em ring is the carol that you sing."
13) "I sing this song to pass the time away, driving in my car."
14) "Snow is falling all around me."
1) Wham! - 'Last Christmas'
2) Brenda Lee - 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree'
3) Mariah Carey - 'All I Want for Christmas Is You'
4) Wizzard - 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday'
5) Band Aid 30 - 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'
6) Leona Lewis - 'One More Sleep'
7) John Lennon and Yoko Ono - 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)'
8) Slade - 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday'
9) The Pogues - 'Fairytale of New York''
10) Elton John - 'Step Into Christmas'
11) East 17 - 'Stay Another Day'
12) Michael Bublé - 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas'
13) Chris Rea - 'Driving Home For Christmas'
14) Shakin' Stevens - 'Merry Christmas Everyone'
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