By rejecting the bombast of 80s pop, the late singer-songwriter’s track has endured, and thereby perfectly captures the nostalgic feelings at the heart of Christmas

• Chris Rea, rock and blues singer-songwriter, dies aged 74
• Chris Rea – a life in pictures

Britain isn’t a great island for road songs. It’s not big enough, really, for you to hit the road and drive. And if you try, you may just end up stuck in traffic on the A1, where the late Chris Rea found himself in Christmas 1978, his wife behind the wheel of her Mini, he beside her as they tried to get from Abbey Road Studios in London to their home in Middlesbrough, 220 miles away.

He wrote the song on a whim, scribbling down the lyrics whenever passing headlights illuminated the car interior (as he told this paper’s Dave Simpson in 2016), then put it away with his other unfinished scraps when he got home. Eight years later, he paired his lyric with some jazzy chords he’d written and a song was born. At first, he shoved it on a B-side, but in 1988 he rerecorded it for a compilation, put it out as a single, and … it was not an instant hit. Instead it was a slow burner that went from radio playlists and department store PA systems into people’s hearts over many years.