"LAST CHRISTMAS"

IN 1984, WHAM! RELEASED A CHRISTMAS RECORD THAT EVERYONE AGREED COULD ONLY POSSIBLY BE A NUMBER ONE RECORD. BUT IT WASN'T.

As their managers, Jazz Summers and I felt one of us should be at Wham’s video shoot. We tossed a coin. But I can’t remember if we decided it would be the winner or the loser who’d have to travel, because there was a problem… There was no snow.

This was the middle of the Swiss Alps in November, so yes, there was a little scuffle of the stuff left over from the last snowfall two weeks earlier. But when I called on the morning we were due to fly out, that’s all there was, certainly not enough for the backdrop needed for “Last Christmas”. Jazz and I were worried. Andy Morahan, the director, was worried. George and Andrew were worried.

Jazz won the toss (or perhaps lost it), and duly set off. As they were getting on the plane, George said to him, “Jazz – if there’s no snow you’re fired.”

But ten minutes after they’d taken off, our travel agent called me from Saas Fe, the resort they were headed to, and told me, “Simon – there’s a blizzard.”

When they arrived it was winter wonderland and from then on everything went like a dream. Until, that is, Christmas itself, when we were pipped at the post by Band Aid. George and Andrew’s plans for a Christmas number one were scuppered.

However disappointed they were it was difficult to look too upset. “Feed the World” was for charity and George himself had sung on it. But inside, he was stung. Until then all the plans he’d made for Wham’s progress from first hit to superstardom had worked to perfection.

George was a great planner, and a great arguer. He’d tell me his plans and argue they were right. If I disagreed, he’d usually say it was because I wasn’t listening to him. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred something would happen later that would prove him right. It was most annoying.

To his credit, he never said, “I told you so,” but he had a certain cold look he’d give me in those circumstances. I called it his “I told you so” look.

When “Last Christmas” failed to become a Christmas number one, I mollifyingly said, “Some things just aren’t meant to be – it’s bad luck. It simply wasn’t destined to be number one.”

If there was one thing George hated, it was being mollified. He was having none of it. “I wrote a Christmas number one,” he insisted.

“But you didn’t,” I said pedantically. “Because it didn’t get there.”

“But it will,” he said defiantly.

I shrugged and I left it at that. But starting the following year the song fought back. And for the next thirty-nine years it refused to accept its fate. All of us – Andrew, Wham’s fans, George’s family and friends, the record company, the general public - all of us were reminded year after year after year - on the radio, in shopping malls, on TV, on the internet - that this was the best crafted, best conceived, best put together piece of pop music that George ever wrote. And now, finally, he’s been proved right - he HAD written a Christmas number one.

And wouldn’t I just love it if he was here, right now, to flash me that icy look...

“I told you so, Simon.”

Happy Christmas everyone.

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