LISTEN: 40 years after its release, Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ is simultaneously loved & avoided around the world
Wham!’s “Last Christmas” has been an enduring holiday classic for nearly 40 years.George Michael wrote the track in his childhood bedroom in 1983 and recorded, produced and played every instrument on the track the following August.“The first time I ever heard it, it was absolutely knockout,” Michael’s Wham!
bandmate Andrew Ridgeley told People in November. “It sounded for all the world like a Christmas classic. It’s Christmas distilled if you ask me.
It’s the essence of Christmas.”Interestingly, the song has little to do with the holiday as it mostly deals with picking up the pieces from the heartache of an ill-fated relationship.
Christmas is merely the mark of the romance’s demise.“Last Christmas I gave you my heart/ But the very next day you gave it away,” the lyrics begin. “This year, to save me from tears/ I’ll give it to someone special.”The accompanying music video is a fabulous visual time capsule of ’80s hair physics and gives more context to the aforementioned breakup as Michael laments his doomed romance when his ex-girlfriend turns up on Ridgeley’s arm while on a group ski trip to the Swiss Alps.
