The sad story behind the lyrics to East 17's 'Stay Another Day'

There's something about East 17's perennial Christmas ballad 'Stay Another Day'. On paper it should be terrible - all cheesy string sections and cliché chord progressions - and yet I think it's precisely because of this that the song is quite wounding, as though the stereotypical elements of it reflect the shallowness and inevitability of Christmas, the chorus leaving you staring misty-eyed into your pint as the lights go up at the end of another work Christmas party.