Last Christmas & Silent Night: Origins, Message & Melodies

by Cathrin Mauer & David Rauh (24.12.2020)

Christmas is the festival of songs! There is no other occasion with such an abundance of melodies and lyrics from all centuries and regions of the world. Let's take a closer look at two songs: Where do they come from? What is the story behind their creation? What exactly do the lyrics say, and what makes their melody so uniquely memorable?

Last Christmas by Wham

You simply can't escape it during the pre-Christmas season – whether as background music in a department store, on the radio, or in the cold at the Christmas market: the song Last Christmas divides opinions like no other during the festive season. There are only two camps – you either love or hate this song!

Last Christmas was released on 3 December 1984 by the British pop duo Wham!, consisting of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, who immortalised themselves in the history of Christmas music with this hit. The lyrics alone don’t immediately suggest that it is a Christmas song. They tell the story of a failed love affair during the previous Christmas season. Even in the music video, which portrays this story with George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in the lead roles, the Christmas tree only serves to set the scene during the festive season.

The video was filmed in the well-known Swiss, mostly car-free ski resort of Saas-Fee in the Valais Alps. Especially for the shoot, the musicians were granted special permission to drive their car through the village and even up to the ski lodge.

If rumours are to be believed, Last Christmas was never actually intended to be a Christmas hit. The record label representing the duo insisted on releasing a Christmas single in 1984 – at the height of their career. George Michael quickly rewrote the lyrics of an already composed song titled Last Easter and shifted the setting from the Easter Bunny to Santa Claus. (What luck that the words 'Easter' and 'Christmas' both have two syllables!)

Despite its success, this Christmas hit has never reached number one on the singles chart – except in Ireland. In its release year, 1984, it was especially overshadowed by the major charity project Band Aid, whose song Do They Know It’s Christmas? (incidentally featuring George Michael) secured the number one spot for several weeks.

And yet, this Christmas pop classic is probably one of the most well-known Christmas songs of our time. Famous superstars like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, or Whigfield, as well as German-speaking music icons like Helene Fischer, Andreas Gabalier, or Matthias Reim, have successfully covered the song.

A competition almost erupted in the 2010s among several radio stations when some presenters locked themselves in their studios and played Last Christmas on a continuous loop for up to two hours – as many as 24 times! Let’s hope such a competition won’t be reignited in the future, allowing us to hear other songs during the reflective pre-Christmas season.

Silent Night

Today, the song Silent Night is known worldwide, translated into over 300 languages and dialects. However, its origins lie in a small village near Salzburg, in Oberndorf. The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber (1787–1863), then a schoolteacher in Arnsdorf and organist and sacristan at the Oberndorf shipper’s church St. Nikola. In 1818, he was asked by assistant pastor Joseph Mohr (1792–1848) to set a poem, written two years earlier, to music. With Mohr playing the guitar – the organ was reportedly broken – the two performed the song at the Christmas Eve service. They were joined by a choir, which repeated the last two lines of each verse. Silent Night was enthusiastically received by the congregation.

The song spread quickly through travelling singer families across Central Europe. Around 1840, the Rainer family brought the song to America. The authors’ names became obscured during its rapid spread, leading Silent Night to be regarded merely as an Alpine folk tune. Michael Haydn, an 18th-century court composer in Salzburg, was also mistakenly credited as its author. Upon learning of this through an inquiry from the Prussian king, Gruber wrote the document Authentische Veranlassung zur Komposition des Weihnachtsliedes ‚Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht‘ (Authentic Account of the Composition of the Christmas Carol ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’) in 1854, enabling us to reconstruct its history with certainty.

Over time, Oberndorf became a kind of Mecca for enthusiasts of the Christmas carol Silent Night. Today, thousands of tourists visit the Silent Night Chapel, built on the site of the former Nikola Church. Nearby, there is a Silent Night Museum, which features a special Advent post office with its own stamp and postmark. Oberndorf is also home to the Silent Night Society, which promotes further research on the Christmas carol.

The oldest surviving written record of the song dates to 1820. The dotted rhythm in 6/8 time gives the song the typical pulse of a lullaby. Each dotted note seems to rock the cradle anew. The lyrics, describing the biblical Nativity scene, carry a glimmer of hope that was particularly meaningful at the time. In the early 19th century, Salzburg faced uncertain times, having lost its independence and undergone upheavals due to the Napoleonic Wars and secularisation. The now rarely sung fourth verse expresses the yearning for reconciliation most clearly:

“Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Wo sich heut alle Macht
Väterlicher Liebe ergoß,
Und als Bruder huldvoll umschloß
Jesus die Völker der Welt.” – Translation

At the beginning of the First World War, Silent Night became a beacon of hope for peace (which, sadly, did not arrive quickly). During the Christmas holidays of 1914, British and German soldiers defied their superiors, agreed to a temporary ceasefire, and sang the famous Christmas carol together in their respective languages. Perhaps it is this timeless message, along with the memorable melody, that continues to move people so deeply.