Christmas songs are mostly about hope, holiday cheer and jingle bells, not heartbreak. But then there’s Last Christmas. Forty-one years later, the bittersweet Christmas classic of failed love still ranks among the top songs of Billboard Hot 100 this season.
School buddies George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were the Wham! duo, but Last Christmas was George’s alone. Famously, George was at his parents’ home in Hertfordshire, UK, in early 1984, when he went up to his room and wrote Last Christmas, complete with music on the keyboard. Downstairs, Andrew was watching a football match on TV. Decades later, Andrew recalled the magic of that creation. When George shared the song with him, it was “a moment of wonder”.
George would turn 21 that year on June 25. In August, when he recorded the song in a London studio, he insisted on doing everything himself — singing, playing the LinnDrum drum machine, the Roland Juno-60 synth and even the sleigh bells. Andrew, however, appeared in the iconic music video shot in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
That song would go on to become a cultural phenomenon. The reasons are not too far to seek. It’s a song that embraces contradictions. The heartbreak song has an upbeat rhythm track. The musical arrangement is kept deliberately simple, allowing George’s voice and the lyrics to shine.
And shine they do: Last Christmas I gave you my heart/ But the very next day you gave it away/ This year, to save me from tears/ I’ll give it to someone special.
The lyrics are defiant yet poignant in their realisations — once bitten and twice shy/ I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye, what a fool I’ve been, but if you kissed me now, I know you’d fool me again. Anyone who’s had their heart broken knows how real these contradictions are.
And then, there’s George’s voice, at once clear and soaring and intimate. Like every great singer, he sings to you and for you.
George was one of the singers in Do They Know It’s Christmas, Band Aid’s single in 1984 to raise money for Ethiopia’s famine relief. (Wham! also donated its royalties to the cause.) That year, the Band Aid single was bigger than Last Christmas, as Andrew recalls in the perceptive BBC documentary, Wham! Last Christmas Unwrapped. But Last Christmas had a longer shelf life.
George died on Christmas in 2016, at age 53, a pop culture and gay icon, with massive hits like Faith, Freedom! ’90 and Jesus to a Child, among others. And yet, Last Christmas — with countless cover versions, including those by Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Robyn — plays on, and not just as a seasonal favourite. Every time you listen to it, you fall in love... with your own vulnerable heart.