1986 in British music cover of the disco song "Don't Leave Me This Way". The band included singer Jimmy Somerville who had previously enjoyed success with Bronski Beat, and later started a solo career. The Christmas number one single was something of a surprise, a re-issue of Jackie Wilson's 1957 single "Reet Petite". Wilson had died in 1984, but the song been re-issued after being used in a television advert for Levi's, with a new video made of a Claymation version of Wilson. Having first been released 29 years earlier, it broke the record for the longest time between a single being released and
Christmas in the post-war United States was #13. "Silver Bells" was composed by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, introduced by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell in the film, "The Lemon Drop Kid" and recorded by Bing Crosby and Carol Richards in 1952. The song was inspired by Salvation Army bellringers and is one of the very few songs about Christmas in the city. The song was originally called "Tinkle Bell", but Livingston's wife reminded him that "tinkle" had another association. "It was something you did in the bathroom," Evans recalled years after the song's composition, "but that's a woman's word and I'd never thought of it."