Shane MacGowan’s widow reacts to Wham! beating The Pogues to Christmas Number One

27 December, 2023

Victoria Mary Clarke and Wham!

Shane MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke has reacted to the news that The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ was beaten to Christmas Number One by Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’. 

Writing on X, she posted a link to the George Michael/Andrew Ridgeley track and said: “I love Wham!!! We loved George.” 

Wham! claimed the top spot on Friday (December 22), finally landing the coveted Christmas Number One for the first time after 39 years. 

It made history as having the longest-ever journey to the UK Christmas Number One, after being held off the top on its original release in 1984 by Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’. 

Clarke had previously endorsed the campaign to get ‘Fairytale of New York’ to Number One, saying she was “very much in favour” of the track topping the charts. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she said. “It should be the Christmas number one. It absolutely should.” 

Proceeds from ‘Fairytale of New York’ are going to Dublin Simon Community this year, a charity supported by MacGowan and Clarke. MacGowan was laid to rest on December 8 after he died from pneumonia in hospital, aged 65, on November 30. 

In response to news of ‘Last Christmas’ success, Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley wrote that “George would be beside himself [that] after all of these years, [we’ve] finally obtained Christmas Number One. Yog [George] said that he wrote Last Christmas with the intention of writing a Christmas Number One. It’s mission accomplished!” 

‘Last Christmas’ was streamed a staggering 13.3 million times over the past seven days, according to Official Charts Company data – the most-streamed Christmas Number 1 ever during Christmas week. It has become the UK’s third biggest song of all time with a combined lifetime total of 5.34m chart units, comprising 1.93m sales and nearly 413 million streams. 

As well as ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘Fairytale of New York’, contenders for the Number One included Sam Ryder’s ‘You’re Christmas to Me’ and Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’. 

Earlier this week, Harry Hill re-shared Shane MacGowan‘s festive cameo from the 2010 Christmas special of TV Burp, in which MacGowan deadpans his way through a duet with a giant beluga whale.

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