Wham! – Last Christmas

The Christmas Decorations In August And The Thirty-Nine-Year Wait

Released on December 3, 1984, as a double A-side with “Everything She Wants” on Epic Records, “Last Christmas” reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and spent five consecutive weeks in that position, blocked from the top by Band Aid’s charity single on which George Michael also performed. The song never charted in the United States until a Record Store Day vinyl release in November 2014, though it became a regular presence on the Billboard Holiday 100, peaking at number three in December 2019. For a track written in George Michael’s childhood bedroom at his parents’ house while Andrew Ridgeley watched television downstairs, this became the best-selling UK single never to reach number one for 36 years until finally topping the charts in January 2021, making it the longest journey to Christmas number one in British chart history at 39 years.

The single sold over two million copies and helped cement Wham’s position as one of the biggest pop acts of the 1980s. Michael generously donated all royalties from the single in perpetuity to the Band Aid Ethiopian famine relief fund, effectively adding a third to the charity’s eight million pound first-year profits. The track entered the UK top 40 fifteen times and the top ten six times between 2007 and 2020 as streaming culture brought it back annually. In December 2023, it finally achieved the Christmas number one position that Michael had always intended, with Andrew Ridgeley telling Official Charts that George would be beside himself knowing they’d finally accomplished their mission. The song accumulated over 413 million streams and became the UK’s third biggest song of all time with 5.34 million combined chart units.

Michael wrote the track during summer 1984 at his parents’ home in Hertfordshire following Wham’s global Make It Big tour. He retreated to his old bedroom where he kept a keyboard and four-track portastudio, sketching out the complete song in approximately one hour. When he came downstairs, Andrew Ridgeley later recalled, George announced with tremendous excitement that he’d written their fourth number one of the year and their Christmas chart-topper. The song addressed heartbreak and failed relationships rather than Christmas itself, with only the title phrase actually referring to the festive season. Michael told the Netflix documentary that he created the melody and arrangement simultaneously, knowing instantly he’d captured something special that distilled the essence of Christmas into music despite the melancholy subject matter.

George Michael produced and performed every instrument himself during August 1984 sessions at Advision Studios in London, with engineer Chris Porter and assistants Paul Gommersal and Richard Moakes as the only other people present. Michael covered the studio entirely in Christmas decorations to establish the proper mood despite recording in summer heat. He played a LinnDrum drum machine, Roland Juno-60 synthesizer, bass guitar, and sleigh bells, performing each part with just two or three fingers on the keyboards according to Porter since Michael had no formal musical training. The arrangement featured warm synthesizer textures, crisp programmed drums, and those immediately recognizable sleigh bells that became synonymous with holiday music. Michael sang all lead and backing vocals himself, creating the layered harmonies that gave the track its lush quality. The entire recording process took minimal time compared to typical album production, capturing Michael’s vision quickly and efficiently.

Director Andrew Morahan filmed the music video in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, at a ski resort during autumn 1984, with friends and family members including backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie participating. Michael instructed Morahan to create essentially a Christmas version of their earlier “Club Tropicana” video. The narrative shows Michael giving a brooch to model Kathy Hill, who plays his love interest, then a year later she’s dating Andrew Ridgeley who now wears the same brooch. Real alcohol flowed during filming, with Kathy Hill later remembering Michael’s amazing sense of humor and genuine laughter during takes where he kept falling while walking uphill. The video marked the final filmed appearance of a clean-shaven George Michael before he adopted his signature beard look. Original 35mm film was rediscovered and restored in 4K Ultra HD for re-release in December 2019.

A BBC documentary titled Wham!’s Last Christmas Unwrapped aired in December 2024 for the song’s 40th anniversary, featuring Ridgeley, Pepsi, Shirlie, and other participants revisiting Saas-Fee and discussing the song’s creation. The publishing company Dick James Music sued Michael for plagiarism in the mid-1980s, claiming similarities to the 1975 song that Barry Manilow popularized, but the case was dismissed when a musicologist presented numerous songs with comparable chord sequences. The song spawned the internet game Whamageddon, where participants try avoiding hearing it between December 1 and midnight December 24. George Michael died on Christmas Day 2016 at age 53, and fans immediately campaigned to make the song Christmas number one as tribute, though it reached only number two in 2017 before finally achieving the top spot in 2021 and again in 2023 and 2024.

Sometimes the greatest Christmas songs aren’t really about Christmas at all. A young man writes about heartbreak in his childhood bedroom on a summer afternoon, decorates a recording studio with tinsel in August, and creates something that becomes more synonymous with the holiday than almost anything except perhaps stockings and trees. Band Aid blocked it from number one in 1984, but Michael donated his royalties anyway and never complained publicly. He teased the track to Paula Yates during the Band Aid recording session, calling their charity single a major threat but acknowledging if Wham couldn’t have Christmas number one, at least the cause was worthy. Thirty-nine years later, after Michael had been gone for five Christmases, the song finally reached the top and proved what he’d known from the moment he came down those stairs in 1984. Sometimes you write a Christmas number one even if it takes four decades to get there. Sometimes the best gifts arrive late but perfect.