The John Lewis Christmas advert is a peculiar beast. It’s a paean to commercialism that, over the last few years, has somehow managed to become a cultural event. It’s geared entirely towards persuading us to hand over our hard-earned pennies to Mr Lewis and his partners, but even the most ardent anti-capitalist Scrooge would surely have to admit they had at least one of their heartstrings tickled by that CGI penguin.
A major part of pulling off that balancing act has been the music, with twee acoustic covers becoming something of a given. This year, though, we’ve had a change — for the first time ever, the song is an original composition, written by BBC Sound of 2020 winner Celeste.
It’s certainly a risk from a money-making perspective. Will people open their wallets quite so willingly without that nostalgia factor? Only time will tell, but from an artistic viewpoint, it’s one of the best decisions John Lewis made yet.
Celeste is a timelessly skilled vocalist — those jazzy, soulful textures could have been plucked from any point in the last 70-odd years — and her tones here will go some way towards warming us as we enter what looks set to be a particularly bleak winter.
Sure, the lyrics are pleasant without being particularly affecting, and it’s cliched in other ways, with the obligatory twinkling keys and wistful strings. But on balance, it’s one of the finer songs in the John Lewis back catalogue, and the songwriting here is strong enough to suggest it will have a shelf life that lasts long beyond the Boxing Day sales.
