When Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley first heard George Michael quit his coronary heart on “Last Christmas,” he knew the beloved xmas tune was one thing particular.
The magic second occurred when the vacation spirit hit his late bandmate in his childhood bed room in London.
“We were killing time around his mom and dad’s house. It was a Sunday afternoon, and the soccer was on TV,” Ridgeley, 61, advised The Put up. “And George disappeared upstairs [where] he had a little Fostex four-track recording studio, which used a cassette tape to record four tracks onto. And [he] came back about an hour later and said, ‘Andy, Andy, you gotta come upstairs and listen to this!’”
What Ridgley heard “written on the spot” was the start of the “Last Christmas” journey to 40 years of festive feels.
“He’d written the bare-bones keyboard track, the basic drum track and a bit of the verse and the chorus,” he recalled. “And it was an amazing moment … I knew it was a hit record. We’d had a few by then, so we were able to recognize them when we heard them.”
Certainly, “Last Christmas” — launched 4 a long time in the past on Dec. 3, 1984 — continued the new streak that Wham! was on after iconic hits akin to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Careless Whisper.” And the vacation basic — presently at No. 4 on the Billboard Sizzling 100, continues to convey pleasure to the world each season — is being celebrated with a brand new fortieth anniversary EP and a Netflix documentary, “Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped.”
“It has become part of the fabric of Christmas,” mentioned Ridgeley. “It’s a very clever lyric and set to a melody that’s really charming, very pretty, very light. And the two kind of work brilliantly together.”
Michael set out with “an aspiration” to jot down a track that will be the 1984 Christmas No. 1 single within the UK.
“It was going to be the icing on the cake for 1984. That was the intended purpose,” mentioned Ridgeley. “When we were growing up in the ’70s, the Christmas No. 1 was a really big deal.”
However, he added, “It was a challenge for George as a songwriter to write within prescribed parameters… And to write [a Christmas song] with such originality as well — the story of a love betrayed.”
When it got here time to file the track at Advision Studios in London, Michael was a one-man band, enjoying a synthesizer, drum machine and sleigh bells along with singing all of the vocals.
“It sounded the same as it sounded in his bedroom,” mentioned Ridgeley. “There was no need for the band. He was left to his own devices.”
The Andrew Morahan-directed video — that includes Michael, Ridgeley and their fellow revelers at a ski resort cottage in Saas-Charge, Switzerland — was shot simply weeks earlier than the one was launched.
“It was largely group of friends that we enjoyed time with back in England, and so it was natural to take them away to shoot a video that basically was a house party,” mentioned Ridgeley. “You take a bunch of 21-year-olds away and you give them free lodging, food and drink, you’re gonna have a bit of a party on your hands.”
However after “Last Christmas” was launched as a double A-side single with the “Make It Big” hit “Everything She Wants,” it stalled at No. 2 within the UK, being held off from the highest spot by Band Assist’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” — an all-star charity single additionally that includes Michael.
Thirty-six Christmases later, although, the one lastly hit No. 1 within the UK on New Yr’s Day 2021. And it, in the end, grew to become the Christmas No. 1 in 2023. “A mere 39 years later,” mentioned Ridgeley with fun.
“Last Christmas” has gone on to encourage the 2019 movie of the identical identify and numerous covers by everybody from Taylor Swift to Ariana Grande. Ridgeley’s private favourite? Gwen Stefani’s 2017 model.
“I like the arrangement, and the production is great,” he mentioned. “It’s got a Phil Spector-type sound, beautiful string arrangement.”
Eight years after Michael’s loss of life on Christmas 2016, the vacation chestnut lately reached a brand new peak at No. 3 on the Billboard Sizzling 100.
And for Ridgeley, “Last Christmas” hasn’t misplaced any of its sparkle 4 a long time later.
“It’s a song that has an essential freshness and vitality,” he mentioned. “So I haven’t tired of it.”
