Things you didn't know about Wham!'s Last Christmas! Behind the Christmas Hits

George Michael loved Christmas. For years, he would have a big, boozy dinner party with about 25 of his closest friends on Christmas Eve. Some years, they’d even go out carolling after dinner.  Imagine: George Michael showing up at your front door at 10 o’clock on Christmas Eve singing Silent Night. It should be no surprise that a guy who loved celebrating the season so much would write a future classic.

This is the story of #LastChristmas.

George & Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley were watching soccer together at Michaels’ parents’ house when the inspiration struck.  Andrew Ridgeley recalled in an interview with British newspaper The Mail on Sunday, that they were having a bite to eat during the game when, almost unnoticed, George went upstairs and didn’t return for about an hour.  When he did, Ridgeley said he was so excited, it was like he struck gold…which, in a way, he had.  
 
George didn’t live with his parents, but his old keyboard was still there…and he used it to write Last Christmas. The two went back upstairs and George played the chorus for Andrew, who described it as a moment of wonder. 

The timing of this inspiration came at a critical time for Wham! Earlier in ‘84, after a legal dispute with their original record label, Inner Vision, George and Andrew signed with Epic Records and had more creative control. And George…took full control.
 
When recording the song Everything She Wants, George and sound engineer, Chris Porter, wound up in a studio in Paris with no band and no producer. Chris says that’s when George realized he could do everything himself. Later, when recording Last Christmas in August of ’84, not even Andrew Ridgeley was allowed in the studio. That’s right – it’s another Wham! song where Andrew Ridgeley is nowhere to be found. George played a Roland Juno-60 synth and a LinnDrumm drum machine himself. Porter has said he wanted to play the sleigh bells but George wouldn’t even let him do that – if it was going to be on the record, George had to play it. 

The video for Last Christmas was the last time George appeared on camera without a beard.  
 
You know, based on what Andrew Ridgeley wrote in his book Wham, George Michael & Me, we could do an entire episode on the making of the video alone. All of the people in it were real life friends of George & Andrew’s.  Wham’s back-up singers Pepsi & Shirley were there as was Martin Kemp, the bass player for Spandau Ballet. They went on an absolute tear. On their first night at the chalet, Andrew says everyone jumped naked into a swimming pool. One unnamed friend swallowed half a gallon of water and got terribly sick…in the pool. 
  
While Last Christmas has been one of the most popular Christmas songs of the last 40 years, it has never reached #1.  

Christmas 1984 was the same year Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas was released and it was the song to dominate the charts that season. George, of course, sang on that song – but Andrew no-showed the recording session. He dismissed a vaguely worded FAX from their management team as being of little importance, so while George, Bono, Boy George and the rest of British pop royalty were making history, Ridgeley says he was at home having a bacon and egg sandwich. 
 
Ridgeley said in his book that he and George were conflicted about the fact Last Christmas was kept out of the #1 spot by Band Aid. Chart success was important to George, especially as he was planning his solo career. All proceeds from Last Christmas were also donated to African famine relief efforts that year, but this undertow of disappointment was real. A disappointment that the song had become what Andrew describes as a “Trivial Pursuit” answer to the question: what is the biggest-selling single NOT to get to #1 in the UK.

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