Last Christmas
by Sheldon Rocha Leal
Music has the amazing ability to transport a person back to the time and place where they first heard their favorite song. The artistic medium is so powerful that one is able to vividly recollect one’s emotions, a situation and even scents when confronted with a long lost song. It is the ultimate emotional time capsule. There is even research which indicates that music can positively stimulate memories in Alzheimer’s patients. Furthermore, there’s an old adage that states that music soothes the saves beast. Music has been used for millennia to influence people. Politicians, advertisers, corporations, religious leaders and even educational institutions have harnessed the power of music to convey a message. The latter just illustrates the power the medium.
I can vouch for the power music. Listening to an old song, whilst sitting at a restaurant, airport or shopping mall immediately teleports me to a different time and place. Which brings me to the topic of this article and the song at the centre of this story “Last Christmas”. When it was released in December of 1984 I was all of 8 years old. I didn’t know who George Michael or Wham! were, all I knew was I loved music and the emotions it evokes. I guess I acquired my passion for music from my dad, who was a big music lover, and always had something cool playing in the background. Well, mostly, he did make some dubious music choices like having a passion for Boney M and ABBA, artists who are not my “cup of tea”.
Back to “Last Christmas”. As I said earlier, the song was released in 1984, which was a bumper year for Wham! The band started the year with a major No1 hit single, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, which peaked at No1 in the USA, U.K. and 6 other countries, shipping over 3million units internationally. This was followed by an even bigger hit in July, the mega ballad “Carless Whisper” which also peaked at No1 USA, U.K. and 8 other countries, shipping over 6million units internationally. The band followed these two mega hits with an additional No1 in the U.K., “Freedom”, which also peaked at No 3 in the USA and “Everything She Wants” which peaked at No1 in the USA and No2 in the U.K.
The latter 2 singles shipped a combined 1,5million units and the 4 singles mentioned in the previous paragraph shipped a cumulative 10,5million units in 1984. The album on which the above singles featured, “Make It Big”, was released in November 1984 and charted at No1 USA, UK and in 9 other countries, shipping over 10million units worldwide. By the time the 1984 Christmas season opened the band was ridding a tsunami of success, having shipped over 20million records globally. This was all before the release of one of the biggest selling/charting Christmas singles of the last 40 years.
Just for context, prior to the 1990s Christmas music was considered novelty and didn’t sell in vast quantities, with record companies reluctant to support these releases, as they were not seen as commercially viable. The reason they didn’t sell well was because most of the songs featured on Christmas albums were standards that had been remade numerous times. Furthermore, albums on which these songs were featured were only successful once a year, during Christmas. The viability of Christmas music as a commercial venture only changed in the 1990s and mostly in the last 10 years, with streaming changing consumption trends and altered chart rules.
Moreover, it is reported that the current generation of music listener loves Christmas music and the trend seems to be growing exponentially with every year. Wham! was, therefore, ahead of the trend when they released “Last Christmas” in 1984, at a time when the only artists releasing Christmas music were those who were trying to revive their careers. Therefore, the release of a humble ballad, that wasn’t even featured on an album, at the height of their success, when they should have been pushing more commercial pop content, instead of novelty hits, was a big gamble.
But fortunately for “Last Christmas” a song that was released 50 years ago can nowadays attain pole position on mainstream charts around the world, because charting rules have changed to accommodate streaming. The consumer and their choices are now reflected more prominently on world charts than ever before in music history. With the advent of streaming, music creation, distribution, releases, charting and consumption has been democratised. A good example of this was the renewed interest in Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” after it appeared on the “Stranger Things” television series. It originally only peaked at No3 UK and No30 USA. After it was used as a plot device on “Stranger Things” in 2022, the song’s popularity was taken to new heights on the charts resulting in a No1 rank in the U.K. and No3 in the USA, 37 years after its initial release.
I got exposed to “Last Christmas” during the 1984 Christmas season, like everybody else. Although I was 8 at the time, I remember the night very clearly. It was a hot summer night in Johannesburg and we were invited to a Christmas party at one of my parent’s friend’s houses. I don’t know about other cultures, but Portuguese people love having parties in garages, so when we got to our destination, the garage had been converted into a disco. There were revolving lights, a turntable, streamers and other party decorations, what more could a kid want.
Everyone was very excited because the hosts had just bought the new Wham! album “Make It Big”, along with the new Wham! Christmas single that had just been released. We danced the whole night to Wham’s! music, including “Last Christmas”. I couldn’t believe my ears, a sad, festive song, that made me feel warm and cuddly. What a dichotomy. I loved the track and remember clearly, how all of us, the kids, were hanging together, slow dancing and some of the older kids were running behind the garage and making out. Ahhhh the memories.
But what is the history of this perennial hit? The song was actually written in 1983 when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were visiting George’s parents. The two had something to eat and then George disappeared for an hour. On his return he told Andrew he’d written a new song and invited his music partner to his bedroom, where the two had spent many hours as children making music and where George kept a keyboard for when inspiration struck. He then played the song to Andrew, who thought the song was genius. The song is not even about Christmas, it is set at Christmas time, but is actually about broken love. “Last Christmas” was written about a former girlfriend of George’s (Kathy Hill) who at the time was dating Andrew. George was 20 years old when he wrote the song.
A year later and George Michael had started becoming more independent as a musician and recording artist. He started toying with the idea of writing, producing and performing all the instruments on his tracks. In August 1984 George Michael went into Advision studios in London with his engineer, Chris Porter, and proceeded to record “Last Christmas”. The studio was decorated in a Christmas theme, to give George the feeling of the season. In November of 1984 George Michael flew to Switzerland to lay the vocal for another Christmas classic “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. The charity single, written and produced by Sir Bob Geldof to raise money for the Ethiopian famine relief effort, would compete with “Last Christmas” in December for the No1 position in the U.K.
In December “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, by the celebrity supergroup Band Aid, took the No1 position for 5 weeks, preventing Wham! from taking a fourth pole position in the U.K. for the year. This fact gave “Last Christmas” the dubious distinction of being the biggest selling single in U.K. history not to peak at No1, having shipped over 2million units in the country. George and Andrew donated the proceeds of the sale of “Last Christmas” to Sir Bob Geldof’s charity. “Do They Know It’s Christmas Time?” shipped over 11million units globally and inspired Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to write and record their own charity single, “We Are The World” under the USA For Africa banner. Their single was released in 1985 and went on to ship over 20million units globally.
“Last Christmas” never charted in the USA, in its initial run, as it was not commercially available in the country. It was only in 2014 when it was made available as 12” vinyl that it became eligible to chart. After the untimely passing of George Michael on Christmas Day in 2016, fans launched a campaign to take the song to No1. In the U.K. the song has re-entered the Top40 singles charts 16 times since 1984 and in 2016 it experienced its highest peak since 1984, No7. In the year after George Michael’s passing the song equalled its original peak of No2. In 2018 and 2019 “Last Christmas” peaked at No3 and finally in 2020 it attained pole position in the U.K. 36 years after it’s original release, breaking the record for the longest journey to No1 in British history. The record was set in 2005 by Tony Christie with the song “(Is This The Way) To Amarillo”, which took 33 years and 4 months to top the chart.
Wham! didn’t hold on the record for too long because in 2022 Kate Bush took “Running Up That Hill” to pole position 37 after it was originally released. Until 2015 it was the most listened to Christmas song of the 21st century in the U.K., until The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” (1987) took the title. In 2022 “Last Christmas” spent two interrupted weeks at No1, bringing its total stay at pole position in the U.K. to 3 weeks. The song also held the distinction of being the final No1 of the year. In December 2023 “Last Christmas” took pole position for a 4th time holding the summit for 4 consecutive weeks, making it the first time it peaked at No1 in the same year twice, once in January and then in December.
The most important record it attained in the 2023/4 season, in its straight month at No1, was achieving the distinction of being the Christmas No1 of 2023, which it missed out on to the Band Aid hit in 1984. It took the song 39 years to achieve this distinction, which is the longest run to the Christmas No1 position. It is also the only song in British history to start and end off a year at No1. “Last Christmas” is now the 3rd biggest selling single of all time in the U.K. The song has now also spent 7 non-consecutive weeks at No1 in the U.K. tying the record with Harry Belafonte’s “Mary’s Boy Child” (1957–8) for the longest running Christmas No1 in British history. Finally, it was also certified 6 times platinum in the U.K. for shipments of over 3,6million units in its home country alone. “Last Christmas” has now been No1 in three distinct years (2020, 2022 and 2023).
In the US “Last Christmas” tracked 750,000 downloads by November of 2016, making it one of the Top 10 most downloaded Christmas singles in the country’s history. The song debuted at No50 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week after George Michael’s passing on the chart dated 7 January 2017. In 2019 it peaked at No25 and No11 in 2020. In 2021 it reached a new peak of No9, welcoming Wham! back to the Top 10 after a 35 year break and making it their 7th Top 10 hit. In January of 2022 the single peaked at No7, a new high. It re-entered the chart in December 2022 and peaked at No10. “Last Christmas” has been certified double platinum in the USA for shipments of over 2million units.
To date “Last Christmas” has taken pole position in 11 countries (U.K., Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Latvia, Italy, Iceland, Germany, Finland, Denmark and Austria) and No2 in 7. In Japan it shipped nearly 700,000 physical units making it the 8th biggest selling single by a non-Japanese act in the country’s history. It has shipped a total of over 9.2million units worldwide, making it one of the 10 biggest selling Christmas songs of all time. Additionally, the “Last Christmas” music video has generated over 830million streams on YouTube and 1.3billion on Spotify. Not too shabby considering that when George Michael was initially interviewed about the song in 1984 he said his main aim was to ensure it shipped 1,5million units.
In 2019 the song inspired the creation of a movie titled “Last Christmas” starring Emilia Clark and Henry Golding and written by Emma Thompson and her husband Greg Wise. The movie featured various songs written by George Michael, but the centrepiece was the Christmas classic. Although slated by movie critics “Last Christmas” (the movie) went on to generate over $120million off a $25million budget. The soundtrack peaked at No11 on the U.K. album’s chart and No55 in the USA, with a No7 peak in Australia. The success of the movie stimulated renewed interest in the song, not that it really needed it.
Over and above the original Wham! version of “Last Christmas”, it has been covered by numerous artists. These include versions that have charted like: Carly Rae Jepson (2015), Ariana Grande (No96 USA, 2013), Joe McElderry (2011), The Glee Cast (No63 USA, 2009), Cascada (No111 U.K., 2007), Crazy Frog (No16 U.K., 2006), Ashley Tisdale (2006) and Whigfield (No21 U.K., 1995). Other significant covers include versions by She & Him, Lukas Graham, Eliza Doolittle, Taylor Swift, Meghan Trainor, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson and The Backstreet Boys. This testifies to the song’s enduring legacy.
“Last Christmas” has become an income generating micro industry generating money for George Michael’s estate from soundtrack licensing royalties, streaming, movie synchronisation licensing, single and album sales. This excludes income generated from covers, with each version of the song articulating into a new stream of income. The growth in the song’s popularity has been exponential, since its initial release in 1984. It is a perennial hit, with fans knowing that with the opening of each Christmas season “Last Christmas” is going to be dusted off and reused for the new season, resulting in renewed appearances on world charts.
The song evokes overwhelming nostalgic feelings for me, so no matter how many times I hear it or how many times it comes back, it feels like welcoming a dear family member back home. I guess this is the feelings that are stirred amongst many music listeners and that is why it surges up the charts annually. My wish is that it finally receives the recognition it deserves by conquering the US charts, making it a 4th No1 in the country for Wham! and 11th for George Michael. That is my Christmas request to Santa. Here’s to “Last Christmas”, may it’s legacy endure for many decades to come and may many other kids, like myself, generate blissful memories from their exposure to the song.
