George Michael’s Christmas carol will go down in history as the number one Christmas carol in Britain 40 years later

Last Christmas by Wham! made pop history and topped the Christmas charts for the first time since its release almost forty years ago.

The popular song, written by George Michael as a teenager and one half of the pop duo with his school friend Andrew Ridgeley, has been a staple of the Christmas charts ever since, but only made it onto the festive number plates this year. (It was already at number one in January 2021.)

The song was released in the winter of 1984 but was famously kept out of number one that year by the British Charity Song Do you know it’s Christmas? sung by the collective efforts of Band Aid. At the time, George Michael, who also sang the charity song, decided to keep all the winnings Last Christmas to the Band Aid Fund to support humanitarian efforts during the famine in Ethiopia this year.

George Michael passed away in 2016, but his song continued to gain popularity. Andrew Ridgeley called Last Christmas Finally reaching number one on the festival season, a “fantastic achievement”.

British Eurovision Song Contest 2022 runner-up Sam Ryder was also this year’s ceremonial runner-up, taking second place You are Christmas to mewith Mariah Carey’s Evergreen Everything I want for Christmas comes in third place.

Ridgeley told it Radio Times How quickly George Michael came up with the song one afternoon when they were hanging out as teenagers:

“It was the fall of 1984. I was at his house, football and Yog was on the TV [as George Michael was known to his family and friends] disappear. Less than an hour later he came out of his room very excited and said he wanted to play something for me. He had the chord progression, the intro and the chorus. It was a breathtaking moment. Even in its simplest, skeletal form, it was clearly a huge hit with its brilliant melody and distillation of Christmas.