Ian Dury’s Christmas hit?

That was the rumour at the time. It certainly sounds like him and the record came out on Stiff, his record label. The Snowmen never revealed their identity. They appeared on Top of the Pops – well, some people miming and disguised as snowmen did – so we still don’t know who they were. The other rumour was that the singer was Jona Lewie, another Stiff artist, but his voice wasn’t that gravelly. Also, he’d had a proper Christmas hit the year before with Stop The Cavalry so this would seem unlikely. So was it Ian Dury? I don’t think so. It wasn’t his sort of material. What’s more he had, to put it mildly, quite an ego so I doubt he’d have remained so anonymous. I shot some TV commercials with him a few years before he died. Damn, I should have asked him.