written and produced by George Michael

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I’m making this page June 25th, 2021, which would have been the

58th birthday of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, better known to us

all as George Michael.

Happy Birthday, and go on resting in peace, GM.

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Welcome to my favorite number by George. That includes Wham!... my favorite Wham! song? Oh, thank you for asking! It’s probably “Freedom.” (Though I am quite partial to “Careless Whisper” as well.) I’m glad you brought that up, too, and I’ll tell you why. So, on the Make It Big album in ’84—yes, the incredibly acclaimed album with “Go-Go,” “Everything She Wants,” and those other two—

“Freedom” was one of its four singles (all of which I just name-dropped). Three of them, including “Freedom,” burned up to #1 on the UK chart. Six years later, now having been firmly on his own footing, George wrote and recorded a new song called “Freedom!”—borrowing Wham!’s exclamation point—for his second solo album. He entitled it “Freedom! ’90.”

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Now, as to this, Wiki sez: “The ‘’90’ added to the end of the title is to prevent confusion with a hit by Michael’s former band Wham!, also titled ‘Freedom.’” But, it seems to me that such an affectation, like a year marker on the end of the title, would seem to indicate that it is the same song, or at least is meant to be, simply a new/updated version of it, as denoted by that marker. To me, that seems to add confusion, not prevent it... I guess if one wanted to prevent confusion, one could amend or append to the title a bit, or adorn it with some other kind of affectation. Make no mistake: the two songs are com-plete-ly different; they sound nothing at all the same whatsoever.

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What does all of this have to do with “Father Figure”? Not much of anything, really; more or less just going off on a pointless segue, which I’ve been known to do from time to time. George, originally from Middlesex, met Andrew Ridgeley in school, and they formed Wham! together as teenagers. Their debut album, Fantastic, was released by a small label called Innervision, but nonetheless was very successful in the UK on its own. But after running into legal disputes with Innervision, the label and Wham! parted ways. Fortuitously for them, it wasn’t long after that the band was snapped up by ageless recording industry giant Columbia Records. One monumentally huge album and one slightly lesser album with still top-charting singles later, George began setting his sights higher.

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Wham!’s (mostly) fun, playful, carefree—when not “Careless”—style corresponded and resonated with their younger fanbase, and George wished to branch forth. He wanted to show off a more “adult” (and also sensual) side of himself, and going solo seemed the way to achieve such results, so he and Andrew split up. As they’d find reinforced years later, there was a reason George had taken over the songwriting/

engineering reigns early on in Wham!’s career. George’s first solo album, Faith, crashed to Earth in fall ’87 and absolutely exploded all over the world. His later albums only echoed his amazing success. ...Andrew released the solo record Son Of Albert in 1990, and... well... do you know anyone who’s ever heard of that album, let alone bought a copy? (I know someone did, because at one visit to my local discount CD store, I saw it used in the dollar bin. Had I known Wham! better at that time, I might’ve been curious enough to take it home and listen.)

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“Father Figure,” cut two on Faith, was originally intended to be an up-tempo dance song. George had a snare drum on the track which he took out for a moment, and upon snare-free listen, the entire feel of the song altered. It sounded like a strange and somewhat eerie dream. And George preferred it. “Father Figure” could be considered the George Michael song that “belongs” to America, in a way; it hit #1 in the US, but reached no higher than #11 in the UK. Hm... maybe that’s why it’s my favorite.

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RIP George, 6/25/63 to 12/25/16.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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George’s official website