One of the best-known Christmas songs in history is not about Christmas at all. The 1984 festive favourite by British band Wham! is about a failed relationship. Twenty-one-year-old George Michael (whose real name was Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou) wrote the song in his childhood bedroom while visiting his parents, with bandmate Andrew Ridgeley watching TV downstairs. When they recorded it in August, they decorated the studio to create a Christmas atmosphere. George Michael insisted on playing all the instruments, despite having no musical training.
Celebrating 40 years of Wham!'s Christmas Classic
The song was a phenomenal success, spending five weeks at No.2 in the charts. It was kept off the top spot by the star-studded charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?, which also featured George Michael. In solidarity, all proceeds from Last Christmas were donated to Ethiopian famine relief. Lyrically, the song is as simple as a nursery rhyme, with the chorus in the past simple and future. Although the narrator implies he has moved on, it is clear to the listener that he is still in love with his ex.
Last Christmas remains the UK’s most-played Christmas song, and has been widely covered, with recent versions by Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and even Crazy Frog. Each day of the festive season the original is viewed on YouTube over one million times. The inspiration for a 2019 movie starring Emilia Clarke, it even spawned a competition called Whamaggedon, where the winner is the person who goes the longest in December without hearing the song. Last Christmas finally reached No.1 in the UK in January 2021, thirty-six years after it was written, and five years after George Michael tragically died — on Christmas Day.
Last Christmas Lyrics
(Chorus)
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
Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye
Tell me baby, do you recognize me?
Well, it’s been a year, it doesn’t surprise me
Happy Christmas, I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying “I love you”, I meant it
Now I know what a fool I’ve been
But if you kissed me now,
I know you’d fool me again
Chorus x2
Ooh
Oh, oh, baby
A crowded room, friends with tired eyes
I’m hiding from you and your soul of ice
My God, I thought you were someone
to rely on
Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart
A man under cover, but you tore me apart
Oh, oh now I’ve found a real love
You’ll never fool me again
Chorus x2
Special
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart
(I gave you mine)
A man under cover but you tore him apart
Maybe next year I’ll give it to someone
I’ll give it to someone special
Special
So long