On the Beatles and “Last Christmas”

People confuse me.

Take, for example, some recent search phrases used to reach my website.

“Did the Beatles record Last Christmas?”

I’ve seen this in the WordPress stats several times in the past week.

First of all, no, the Beatles did not record “Last Christmas.” The song wasn’t even written until 1984, when it was recorded by Wham. Yes, George Michael and that other guy recorded “Last Christmas.” The Beatles were long since disbanded in 1984.

That is not to say, however, that a Beatles tribute band didn’t record “Last Christmas.” They did. A band from, I think, Sweden named Rubber Band recorded it for their album, Beatmas, which I wrote about here. I like the Beatle-esque take on the song. It’s upbeat and peppy.

And I like Beatle-esque Christmas music in general, such as the Fab Four’s two albums, which I write about here. Nothing to do with “Last Christmas,” though.

I do note that Billie Piper recorded a cover of “Last Christmas.” I did not know this, but Wikipedia tells me this, so it must be true.

This post, by the way, was written with the Opera 10.50 Pre-Alpha. Yes, a Pre-Alpha! It released today, and I, being the Opera fan that I am, had to download it and give it a try.

Major things I notice? Rounded corners. Yes, I think the rendering engine can handle rounded corners in CSS. 🙂

It does mean moving on from Futhark, which is sad, because if I were a language, I would be Futhark. (Futhark is the name of the Javascript engine in Opera 10.0.) The new JS engine in Opera 10.5 is named Carakan, which is a Javanese script.

Futhark will always have a place in my heart. 🙂

Coming back on topic, the Beatles did not record “Last Christmas.” If you hear it on the radio, and it sounds like John Lennon is singing it, I can assure you that you’re hearing Rubber Band. Not the Beatles. :cheers:

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *