Released in 1984 and has to be the best Wham! release not to get to number one in the charts! That year, Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas’ hit the top spot and stayed there.
Incidentally, the ‘B’ side of Last Christmas was my second favourite Wham! song, ‘Everything She Wants’ which should have been a number one in its own right.
The story inside the video of Last Christmas is basically a bunch of friends getting together for a weekend at a skiing lodge. George has a new girlfriend, but his ‘ex’ is also at the get-together. They must have broken up on Boxing Day the previous year and George was obviously dumped by his ex which accounts for all the daydreaming and questioning looks he gives her in the video.
He must have been pretty cut-up about it because as the song says ‘Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away‘ and promises to give his heart to another this year.
The ‘ex’ looks happy with last year’s decision but still has a fondness, in a ‘can-we-stay-friends’ way for George.
George has suffered, but judging by the way everyone is happy leaving the lodge at the end of the video, he must have come to terms with it and probably realises it was the right choice.
The music is all warm and Christmassy with a gentle and deep rhythm. A real Christmas tune if ever I heard one!
Also, notably, this was George Michaels’s last video in which he appeared clean-shaven!
The Last Christmas song has been covered hundreds of times, but non, in my eyes, measure up to the original. Here are 3 of my favourite versions after the very best which is the Classic Last Christmas by Wham!
Last Christmas – Wham!
Miranda Cosgrove – Last Christmas
There are tons of people who have covered Last Christmas, but to be honest, none of them can really do the song the justice it deserves! Here we see Miranda Cosgrove, from iCarly fame, do a better job than most when she sang in front of a star-studded event in Washington, including President Barack Obama. It’s a sweet cover and does encapsulate a little Christmas feeling. A quirky choice maybe!
Thirteen Senses – Last Christmas
This rather pleasing version from Thirteen Senses, a band from Cornwall, was recorded live on the Jo Wiley show in December 2004. It’s very much a slower version, but Will South’s voice lends the song a very respected tribute.
Atomic Tom – Last Christmas
A very distinctive version of Last Christmas here from New Yorkers Atomic Tom. This is probably my favourite cover version and was remarkably available in 2011 as a free download from the band’s Facebook page! Deserves to be a chart hit over here in the UK. They’ve done a similar project for this season by making their own version of Maria Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ available as a free download on YouTube and Soundcloud. Good on them!
