George Michael’s former comrade in the legendary group Wham! evokes the genesis of the song Last Christmaswhich became a Christmas classic and was released just 40 years ago. BFMTV met him.
The huge tube Last Christmasreleased on November 30, 1984, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Andrew Ridgeley, guardian of the memory of the group Wham!, which he formed in the 1980s with George Michael, looks back on the history of this song.
“George (Michael) set out to write a Christmas classic. Christmas was very important to him. We grew up in the 1970s in the UK, where the Christmas hit was something something unique in the musical landscape. Cliff Richards, Paul McCartney, Elvis, they all had a Christmas song. It was THE mark of the greatest composers.
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“His song is very clever. It’s a lament, the lyrics talk about broken hearts and Christmas romance, lost love. All set to a beautiful melody. The sound evokes Christmas, represents Christmas, reproduces the atmosphere .”
“People remember the Christmas No. 1, not the May 24 No. 1,” smiles Andrew Ridgeley.
Unfortunately, the song didn’t hit number one that Christmas, as another hit overshadowed it. It is about Do they know it’s Christmasfrom Band Aid formed by Bob Geldorf, to raise funds for Ethiopia.
The song took 36 years to reach the top of the charts in the United Kingdom. This number 1 position, in the very first week of 2021, made it the song that took the longest to reach the top of the UK chart. And Last Christmas will not be classified as “Christmas song of the year” until 2023, 39 years after its release.
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“He would have been immensely proud and over the moon,” Andrew Ridgeley commented in early 2021.
George Michael died in 2016, on December 25, at his home in Oxfordshire, following a heart problem.
Andrew Ridgeley, now 61 years old, shared the stage with George Michael, his childhood friend, in the group Wham!, from 1981 to 1986. Their common career is brief, but punctuated by hits which marked their time, and still resonate today. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go , Last Christmas, Careless Whisper, I’m your man, The Edge of Heaven, Everything she wants.
“A special emotion”
The song Last Christmas was born, one boring afternoon, from a flash of genius in the mind of George Michael.
“We were killing time. We were hanging out on a Sunday afternoon,” says Andrew Ridgeley. “All of a sudden, George disappears upstairs. He had a little tape recorder. He recorded on a cassette. You could put four songs on it. He comes down shortly after, very excited. I have rarely seen him so enthusiastic.
“He had composed the structure, the piano part and wrote the chorus and a few verses. You could immediately see that it was a song of genius. The melody was beautiful, the chorus ‘last Christmas, I gave you my heart’, very evocative, and it had all the makings of a hit.”
“The theme is universal. A broken heart. It has existed in music since the beginning of time. (But) Christmas is a time for romance, conveys a special emotion.”
The song was recorded in the fall of 1984, after the rest of the album, The Final, recorded in the summer of 1984.
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