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I'm also sure this used to have a better video, from its first release. Nowadays it's one of those gritty, camera phone-esque jobs, complete with footage of "Gosh Aren't I Successful?" massive live performances interspersed with fancy doodles, like 'Get Together' by Madonna, only, err, without Madonna.

Never mind, though, because it's Mika on top form, which is to say it's a stonking pop melody with a bit of mournful sadness so he can just tone down all that "EVERYONE IS HAVING SO MUCH FUN HERE AREN'T THEY" holiday camp business and get on with singing a song. It's not even all in falsetto.

Admittedly, a lot of the brilliance of this song has to be attributed to the fact it nicks its melody from '(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight' by the illustrious Cutting Crew, one of those big late eighties hair ballads about feeling funny feelings for someone:

But hell, it's been twenty years since that was first released and I know I normally get all up in bands' collective faces for not bothering to write their own tune but I believe this is actually listed as a proper sample, so it narrowly escapes judgement. This keeps a lot of the sentiment of the Cutting Crew song, insofar as there's a certain edginess and desire in there and the 'us against the world' sentiment has a lot of the power ballad heritage in it. It sounds like streetlights whipping past a moving train in the dark, like rain lashing the windows and like doing something really quite reckless, with just enough determination to make it work out.

The lyrics are actually quite marvellous, too - maybe it's just that I spend a lot of time on long-distance train journeys and live at the end of a very long and hopeless line but the travelling imagery fits nicely with the kinesis of the song, xylophones propelling it along, scratchy guitar parts screech by and on we plunge, straight into the night.

It's a moving song, not in the sense that it makes you well up with tears but in the sense that it's going somewhere, without actually getting there within the song itself; it's the journey, not the arrival. At this time of year, that's exactly the sort of song that fits- all across the country, people are wrapping themselves up and stomping out to various transports to begin the long trek to wherever they have Christmas and there's something wintry about a bit of xylophone that can't help but warm the cockles as houses plummet to sub-zero temperatures and that seasonal madness takes over that sees you up at 2am, making mince pies.

In other words; if this didn't do it the first time, it blimmin well deserves to this go, it's perfect for the time of year and remains, in my eyes at least, the entire point of Mika.

Download: Out now
CD Released: December 31st

(Hazel Robinson)