East 17 star reveals Stay Another Day was never meant to be a Christmas hit
We've been speaking to the writer of one of the nation's favourite festive tracks
Last updated 8th Dec 2023
Tony Mortimer refers to his iconic song "Stay Another Day" as the Die Hard of pop music.
The 1994 hit for East 17 was number one in the UK charts for five weeks - knocking Baby D's Let Me Be Your Fantasy off the top spot and securing the Christmas number one slot ahead of Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You.
But in an interview with MFR the founding member of the boyband says it was never intended to be a Christmas classic.
Stay Another Day's iconic music video
He told us: "It is now, but was it supposed to be? No it wasn't, but is it now? Yes it is because the public have chosen it for Christmas.
"It's like the Die Hard Movie - is it a Christmas movie or isn't it? Die Hard is never going to be a Christmas Carol but it's still a Christmas movie.
"It's the same with Stay Another Day, and that's one of the nice things about it, is that it's not really supposed to be, but there are so many songs like that out there."
'Not once did I mention bells'
Mortimer has spoken in the past about the origin of the song being based on losing his brother to suicide - and was then adapted to focus on the end of a relationship.
It reached number one in four countries, and was named in a list of the 100 best UK number ones in a Guardian poll in 2020.
Tony told us the video, which featured the boyband wearing oversized white puffer jackets, contributed to the Christmas vibe, but it was producers who added in the chiming bells that gave it an added festive boost: "I went and had a meeting with Ian Curnow who was one of the producers and I said 'I see it as a crescendo that gets bigger and bigger as time goes on, it starts quite sparse and as we go on, I'd really like it to build'.
"But not once did I mention bells!
"I heard that was the record companies idea, so they put the bells on afterwards.
"Ian threw everything at it, the kitchen sink and the bell and whistles, and the bells went on at the end to make it more Christmassy - and it did."
New remake as part of partnership with NSPCC
A tongue-in-cheek remake of the song, Save Another Day is being released for Christmas 2023, in support of Lidl's partnership with the NSPCC - which will see the supermarket donate £100,000 to help support young people's mental health through the festive period and beyond.