John Lewis Christmas ad 2024 features Richard Ashcroft's reworking of The Verve's Sonnet

14 November 2024, 10:24 | Updated: 14 November 2024, 12:15

Watch the John Lewis Christmas Ad 2024

The latest John Lewis Christmas advert, entitled The Gifting Hour, has been released and it features Richard Ashcroft's 2021 reworking of his classic 1998 single.

The John Lewis Christmas advert 2024 has been unveiled and it features a very familiar track. Watch it above.

Entitled The Gifting Hour, this year's festive promo tells the story of a woman who's looking for the perfect gift for her sister, so delves back in time for inspiration.

Despite it being one of the the department store's most simple and paired-back adverts for quite some time, it does feature some iconic accompaniment, thanks to the iconic Verve single Sonnet, which Richard Ashcroft reworked for his 2021 album, Acoustic Hymns Vol 1.

The original 1998 Verve 1998 Verve single featured on the band's seminal 1997 album, Urban Hymns.

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What is the John Lewis Christmas advert 2024?

The Gifting Hour is the name of the John Lewis Christmas advert for 2024. It features a woman who is thinking of the perfect Christmas gift for her sister and so delves back in time for inspiration. Cue plenty of moments for nostalgia and tears.

What is the song in the John Lewis advert 2024?

The John Lewis advert for 2024 features a reworking of The Verve's Sonnet by the band's former frontman Richard Ashcroft. The 2021 version features on Ashcroft's Acoustic Hymns' Vol. 1 but originally featured on the band's 1997 album Urban Hymns and was released as a single on 2nd March 1998.

Amazingly the original Sonnet was almost never was released.

The band didn’t want to milk the album too much; in fact, by the time the single was released, it was a full six months after the parent album hit stores, but their label Hut insisted.

The Verve’s label Hut insisted that they capitalise on the band’s huge fame at the time, so the band agreed to the single release - but only if it was as a limited edition.

The track was issued as 12”, limited to just 5,000 copies, which came in a cardboard envelope that you could stash the rest of your Urban Hymns singles in. The single was issued to shops on 2 March 1998 and crept to a lowly No 74 in the UK charts.

The Verve - Sonnet

Despite the low-key release twenty three years ago, Richard Ashcroft still admits that Sonnet can still move an audience.

He told Radio X: “Songs like Sonnet… they’re so powerful, they’re beyond me and I think that’s an exciting thing.

“What’s good is that now I’m in a position where each drop of new material just makes [picking a] setlist a problem - it’s like having an incredible team, you know?”

Read more:

• 10 things you may not know about The Verve's Urban Hymns album
• Why Richard Ashcroft didn't celebrate Urban Hymns' 20th Anniversary...

Remind yourself of the John Lewis 2023 Christmas advert below:

'Snapper' stars in the John Lewis 2023 Christmas Advert