Sam Ryder eyes up number one with You're Christmas to Me

Sam Ryder says he's hopeful his festive song can reach number one, even though "no-one knows that it even exists".

If you haven't heard You're Christmas To Me yet, chances are you're not alone.

Sam wrote it for an Amazon Prime film and it was released exclusively through Amazon Music, so you won't find it on Spotify or Apple.

But his fans have tracked it down and it's climbed to number 10 in the Official Singles Chart this week.

"It's somehow caught on," he tells BBC Newsbeat.

"People seem to be liking it but at the same time, the amount of people that don't know this song exists is bonkers."

Can the 34-year-old pull off a miracle?

He'll have to compete with classics like current number one Last Christmas, by Wham, and "Queen of Christmas" Mariah Carey, who's at number three with All I Want for Christmas Is You.

And Fairytale of New York has climbed to number five, after the death of Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan inspired a push to get it to the top spot.

But an upset could come from Noah Kahan - the US singer-songwriter whose song Stick Season has shot to second place after Olivia Rodrigo covered it on Radio 1's Live Lounge.

Although he's dreamed of having a festive hit, Sam says he knew his track from Your Christmas or Mine 2 "may only exist in that little bubble of the audience that watch the film".

"It may not permeate into the culture or the charts or anything like that. So we recorded it simply for love," he says.

The Essex singer wrote the song in August but says getting into the festive spirit in summer wasn't as challenging as you might think.

"Remember how bad our summer was this year?," he says.

"It was quite a gloomy day and I was like, 'this is actually quite perfect'. I can just pretend it's Christmas."

You're Christmas To Me could be Sam's first Christmas number one, but it's also his first release as an independent artist.

His split from label Parlophone Records in September after completing a one-album deal, and says it's been "the most freeing experience".

"Your team becomes so much smaller, it becomes so much more potent because it's made up mostly of your pals," he says.

"And even if you get battered and bruised by the end of whatever it is that you're after, it doesn't matter because you're in it together. And it's such a lovely experience."

It's often been said about Sam that he's a glass-half-full kind of guy, one with buckets of "golden retriever energy".

"When I was in college, my tutors used to call me Tigger," he says. "I think I was always just a bit too, like, annoyingly enthusiastic about things."

He doesn't plan on limiting that any time soon.

"Cool is the enemy," he says. "I've always thought that, especially in the arts, people put this currency on being deep and mysterious and aloof.

"To hell with that.

"Life's too preciously short to not be bounding for joy and gratitude."

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