Last Christmas - Verse 2

"Merry Christmas" I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying, "I love you", I meant it
Now I know what a fool I've been
But if you kissed me now, I know you'd fool me again

Hello and welcome to Learning English with Lyrics, I am your host Jake, and today we are diving right into verse 2 of "Last Christmas" originally by Wham!. If you haven't listened to the last two episodes of this series, I'd recommend pausing the podcast here, and going back to listen to them. If this is your first time listening to the podcast ever, welcome! I'd also recommend pausing here and listening to the episode titled "Introduction" before continuing.

Alright, with all that out of the way, let's get started with our breakdown!

We start out this verse with the phrase "Merry Christmas", which is the traditional greeting of Christmas time. "Merry" means the same thing as "happy". In American English, we don't use the word "merry" in many other contexts. For us, it's a bit old fashioned. It sounds very old. However, a lot of Christmas songs and stories use old fashioned language, so for many of us, words like "merry" are tied very tightly to celebrating the holiday.

The most common place that we use the word "merry", outside of Christmas time, is in the word "merry-go-round". Do you know what a merry-go-round is? The phrase "go round" means to spin in a circle. So it's something that makes people happy, that spins in a circle. A merry-go-round is a children's ride, also known as a carousel. It's normally round, and filled with fake horses or other animals for the children to ride on. As it spins, the animals that children are on usually go up and down to simulate riding them around. Kids love them!

We sometimes use the word "merry-go-round" to describe a circular situation. Something that feels like you're not actually making any progress, you're just spinning around in circles, always ending up back where you started! Whenever I have to deal with government offices, no matter which country I'm in, I always feel like I'm on a merry-go-round.

Have you ever been in a situation that felt like a merry-go-round? I'm sure that sometimes my explanations feel like we're all on a merry-go-round Let's go ahead and get off of this ride and move to the next part of the line.

The next part of the first line says "I wrapped it up and sent it". What do you think "it" is in this sentence? Think hard about our song so far, including the chorus. What could our singer be saying that he wrapped up and sent?

Do you think you've figured it out? I'll give you the answer in a minute.

What does it mean to wrap something? To wrap something, quite simply means to take a material, usually paper or cloth...something soft and flexible, and cover something else with that material. The most common example would be a present. Normally, when you give somebody a present, you don't want them to know what it is immediately. So you wrap the present in paper to hide what it is. Can you guess what we call the special type of paper that we use to wrap presents? If you guessed "wrapping paper", nice job! We aren't always super clever when we make up words in English.

So generally when we give presents, we wrap them up in wrapping paper. The person who receives the gift then UNWRAPS the present. That is to say, they remove the paper from the present.

You can wrap other things too. If you take a flexible material and cover something with it, that's wrapping. Can you think of something you might wrap yourself in? If you live in a colder climate, during the wintertime you probably "wrap yourself in a blanket" when you're cold! I do this often and I don't even live in a cold climate.

So, getting back to our song, our singer wrapped something up as a gift, and "sent it", that is, he sent the gift to the person. But he didn't just send it by itself. He sent it "with a note saying, "I love you". It's very common to attach a note or even a small letter to a gift that you're giving to somebody. Usually this explains who the gift is from, and maybe says something kind about the person you're giving the gift to.

At the end of this line he says "I meant it". This phrase "I meant it", means the same thing as saying "I was serious". He's saying that he didn't just write "I love you" to be nice, or polite. He was serious, and he meant it in a serious way. "I meant it" means the same thing as "I meant what I said" or "I meant what I did", depending on the context.

Alright so...what is the gift that he's giving to this other person? Let's look at our clues. We know that it's a present...but what kind of present? Well, our song is all about Christmas so...it's most likely a Christmas present. But is the song really talking about a literal, physical present that was given from one person to the other? Think about the words of our chorus: "Last Christmas, I GAVE you my heart". So during Christmas time, he gave something to this other person. Something that we could consider...a gift

So when our singer talks about wrapping up this gift, his heart, and sending it to someone, he's being poetic, playing with one of the themes of our song: Christmas time.

You've probably heard me use the word "theme" before, but what IS a theme? A theme can be one of two things, that are pretty close in meaning. A theme can be the general idea or subject of something, such as a work of art OR it can be something that is recurring throughout it. In many cases, a specific theme can be both of these things at the same time. For example, if I asked you what the primary or main theme of this song was, what would you say? I would say that the theme of the song is heartbreak. The core thing that this song is talking about, is the idea of being rejected by someone. However, we could also say that one of the "themes" is Christmas. The events of this song take place during three different Christmases, and there is a lot of Christmas "themed" language. I don't think that it's the primary theme, but it is something that recurs or repeats throughout the song multiple times.

So, using our theme of "Christmas", our singer is poetically describing falling in love with somebody as "wrapping up their heart and giving it to them as a gift." That is very pretty imagery.

The next line says "Now I know what a fool I've been". "What a fool" might sound kind of confusing. The word "what" seems a little bit odd here, don't you think? This is a kind of intensifier. "What a" intensifies the word "fool". By saying "What a fool I've been!" he's not just saying that he was a fool, but that he was exceptionally foolish. You can use this same form with other words too. "What a day!" means that you've had quite an exceptional day. It's been crazy in some form. Maybe good. Maybe bad. For example, maybe you woke up late, your car wouldn't start, you missed the bus, you got to work and realized you had forgotten to put on your pants, you got fired from your job, and you got home only to find out that your house had burned to the ground while you were gone. You could exclaim "What a day!" because you've had a very bad, very eventful day. On the other hand, maybe you had a day filled with good events, or even a mix of both good and bad events, and you get home and sit down on the couch and say "What a day!" to simply say that it's been a crazy day! "What a movie!" "What a beaute!" "What a car!" "What a cookie!" The words "what a" just amplify each of these things and, depending on the context, it could be a good or a bad thing. For one final example, let's use the phrase "What a movie!". If I have just left the theater and I say "What a movie!" with a smile on my face, you would be right to think I enjoyed it. If I said it with a frown while shaking my head, you would be right to think that I didn't enjoy the movie, or perhaps I was just really moved by the film. To make it more clear what you mean, you can even add adjectives. "What a great movie!" "What a horrible movie!" "What a beautiful movie!"

Try it out yourself!

So our singer is saying that he's been a big fool! He's saying that he was foolish to give his heart away to this other person. The word "fool" is rather strong here. To call someone, even ourself, a fool is quite a judgement. It means that you acted or are acting in a way that is very obviously stupid and wrong. He's saying that it was foolish to give his heart away to this person, either because it was risky, or because he should have known that this other person would break his heart. By calling himself a fool, he's essentially saying that he should have known BETTER.

If you "should have known better" that means that you had the ability to make the right choice, but you didn't think it through enough. You didn't spend enough time evaluating the situation, and you made a bad or foolish decision. You had all the information that you needed to do the right thing, and you did the wrong thing.

Our verse ends on a very interesting note.

"But if you kissed me, I know you'd fool me again"

So after all of this explanation and regret, after realizing that he was a big fool, he's saying that if this other person kissed him just one more time, he would be "fooled by" them again, that is to say, he would immediately give his heart back to this other person, even though they already broke his heart once.

The word "fool" here is a play on words. Although it's related to our previous usage of the word fool, it isn't exactly the same thing. Iinstead of the noun "fool", which means "a person who is foolish", we're using the verb "fool". "To fool" someone is to trick them. For example, if I convince you that I am the president of the United States, than I have "fooled" you. If someone gives me a box of cookies, and then I open it up and it's a box of celery sticks instead, they have "fooled" me. I have been tricked. Someone who is "fooled" will often feeling like they ARE a fool, because they allowed themselves to be tricked!

So our singer is saying, that even though he knows that he shouldn't trust this person with his heart, if they show him any interest again, he would fall in love again. It seems that our singer still has feelings for, or maybe even still loves this other person. We could say that our singer isn't "over" this other person or that he isn't "over" the relationship. That means that he still thinks about it a lot, and that he still wants to be with this other person, even though their relationship is finished.

Well, that's all we have for the song today. I hope that you aren't "over" the podcast just yet. In the next episode we're going to talk about verse 3 of the song! I'll talk to you then!

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