Wham!’s holiday hit Last Christmas has reached No. 1 in the UK for the first time ever.

The festive single, penned by the late George Michael and released back in 1984, has impacted the charts annually over the Christmas period, reaching a peak of No. 2.

However, in the Official Charts Company’s rundown dated January 1 2021, Last Christmas came out on top – beating Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You to the top spot.

Incidentally, Mariah’s track, released in 1994, also hit its peak at No. 1 in the UK back in December.

Upon its release, Wham! donated all of their royalties for Last Christmas to relief efforts for the Ethiopian famine – which was also supported by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? the same year.

Writing in the Daily Mail back in 2017, George’s bandmate Andrew Ridgeley opened up on the making of the song, explaining: “Last Christmas had its beginnings on an ordinary Sunday in 1984. George and I were visiting his parents.

“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.

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

Andrew recalled: “We went to his old room, the room in which we had spent hours as kids recording pastiches of radio shows and jingles, the room where he kept a keyboard and something on which to record his sparks of inspiration, and he played me the introduction and the beguiling, wistful chorus melody to Last Christmas. It was a moment of wonder.

“George had performed musical alchemy, distilling the essence of Christmas into music. Adding a lyric which told the tale of betrayed love was a masterstroke and, as he did so often, he touched hearts.”