Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael of Wham! performing in 1984

Although few and far between, there are certain Christmas songs that we really don’t mind hearing on a loop every Yuletide – and Wham!’s Last Christmas is up there with Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You in that respect.

With its universal theme of lost love combined with that instantly recognisable – and deceptively simple – melody written by the late, great George Michael (something his Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley has described as “musical alchemy”), it’s no surprise that Last Christmas has been a feature of the festive chart pretty much every year since its original release in 1984.

After finally reaching number one for the first time in 2021, Last Christmas made chart history in 2024, which coincided with its 40th anniversary.

But if you thought you knew everything there was to know about the festive classic after hearing it for the 20,000th time, think again...

George Michael wrote Last Christmas in his childhood bedroom during a visit to his parents’ house with his Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley

“We’d had a bite to eat and were sitting together relaxing with the television on in the background when, almost unnoticed, George disappeared upstairs for an hour or so,” Andrew later recalled.

“When he came back down, such was his excitement, it was as if he had discovered gold which, in a sense,........

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