Songfacts®:

• Gabrielle Aplin is an indie-folk singer-songwriter from Sutton Benger, a village 20 miles east of Bath, in south west England. She first developed a fan base after publishing acoustic covers of songs by bands such as Paramore and You Me At Six on YouTube. After self-releasing three EPs on the Never Fade Records label, Aplin announced in 2012 that she had signed to Parlophone. This cover of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood hit was released as her first single on November 9, 2012.
• The song was selected to soundtrack the John Lewis 2012 Christmas advertisement after Aplin lobbied the department store for a year to sing their Christmas song. "I tried to find John Lewis on Twitter. He hasn't been alive for a long time," the singer told the Evening Standard. "I then started pestering people at John Lewis before I realized I was tweeting people who worked in the actual shop."
  
  Aplin's rendition was finally chosen over eight others submitted to John Lewis.
  
  Previous songs that have sound tracked the John Lewis Christmas advertisement include Ellie Goulding's "Your Song" and Slow Moving Millie's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want."
• According to Aplin, she's been given the thumbs up by Frankie Goes To Hollywood for her version of their tune. She said: "I was worried people might hate me because they were so attached to the original single. But I've since been in touch with (lead singer) Holly Johnson, and he said some lovely things about my take on his song."
• The song climbed to #1 in its fourth week on the UK singles chart. Its ascent to the top was attributed in part to a performance of the song in the X Factor semifinal by the eventual show winner James Arthur.