I don't quite understand why I haven't heard this song before, but was sent to Mudcat to get the words on behalf of a friend of Mrs Santa, who thought that it had to be a better song than X-factor had made it. So I've been playing some of the You-tube videos. Not yet found Alexandra's version, possibly happily so. There's a young lass recently started coming to the club, she doesn't know much folk music but knows that songs should be sung as if they mean something to the singer. She was quite dismissive about X-factor - nearly as good as the Guardian today (but as I haven't heard it yet, I shouldn't really comment, should I?)

Just to join the crowd in pressing my own opinions: Katherine Jenkins was quite good, if a bit soulless, but the kdlang one was awful. Pure ham and over-acting. She'd got to be taking the piss.

I'm not sure I've found the "best" version yet, it's not Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Allison Crowe, although Kate Voegele's ok-ish. Quite liked Rufus Wainwright but the John Cale one was pretty good, for the reasons mentioned above. Now suffering from over-exposure, so will go away and listen to the Buckley and Cohen versions again tonight.