East 17 singer Tony Mortimer has opened up concerning the emotional toll of listening to the group’s signature monitor Keep One other Day yearly.

Regardless of not being a Christmas tune within the conventional sense, Keep One other Method topped the Christmas charts in 1994, which – together with its wintery music video – means it’s typically performed across the festive interval.

Whereas at first look, the lyrics may seem like a simple break-up tune, they really have a a lot deeper that means, as they consult with the suicide of Tony’s brother Ollie years earlier.

“It was based mostly on my brother’s suicide and dropping somebody,” he advised Songwriting Journal in 2016.

“What would you do if you happen to had another day with a cherished one?”

Tony added that the lyrics have been “all based mostly on conversations I’d had with my brother and I used to be making an attempt to vary it right into a love tune concerning the finish of a relationship”.

In a brand new interview with The Unbiased, Tony shared: “I settle for it, but it surely’s all the time been tough, a two-edged sword, for my household.

“Folks come as much as me and say: ‘That tune means so much to me…’ I’m like: ‘Dangle about, I’m not prepared for that but, I’m simply in McDonald’s!’ However I’ve received used to it, as a result of it’s been so lengthy.”

“It by no means stops, although, and it’s yearly,” he added of the tune’s annual resurgence.

This yr, which marks 30 years since Keep One other Day first topped the charts, the tune is being re-released, as a part of a marketing campaign with with the music remedy charity Nordoff And Robbins.

He defined: “The file firm was going to do one thing. We have been batting round concepts, speaking a few reunion and one thing massive. And I mentioned: ‘I don’t simply wish to launch the one and be on the take. That’s not proper.’

“So I’ve stopped them simply releasing it [for money] – and I be ok with that.”

Of his tune’s potential to now assist others by way of the Nordoff And Robbins partnership, Tony admitted: “It nonetheless stings, but it surely does assist. I can’t play that tune and never know what I’m taking part in, not consider my brother, each time. Nevertheless it’s not about me any extra, and it’s not about him. It’s concerning the tune and the way the general public see it.

“Most of them don’t even know the factor behind it. And I settle for that – that it [just signifies] Christmas. That provides me a smile.”

In 2019, a re-released model of Keep One other Day was additionally launched by Tony, with proceeds going to the psychological well being organisation CALM.

• Thoughts, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
• Samaritans provides a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this quantity is FREE to name and won’t seem in your telephone invoice).
• CALM (the Marketing campaign Towards Residing Miserably) provide a helpline open 5pm-midnight, one year a yr, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
• The Combine is a free help service for folks underneath 25. Name 0808 808 4994 or e mail assist@themix.org.uk
• Rethink Psychological Sickness provides sensible assist by way of its recommendation line which will be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). Extra information will be discovered on rethink.org.