Below is the write-up about George Michael’s song “Praying for Time” from the book “The Billboard Book of Number One Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number One Single on Billboard’s Hot 100 from 1955 to Present” by Fred Bronson.
Praying for Time
COLUMBIA 73512
GEORGE MICHAEL
Writer: George Michael
Producer: George Michael
October 13, 1990
1 week
AFTER shedding his bubblegum, Wham! image and achieving solo success with his Faith album, George Michael decided he’d had enough. Although he had wanted to be a pop star since the age of seven, George discovered that being a superstar made him miserable. The pressures of celebrity hit him hardest when he embarked on a 10-month tour to promote Faith. “I can remember the exact moment that I decided I must change my life,” he told Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times. “We (opened) the Faith tour in Japan, which was fine because they are reasonably quiet, and they listened to the music. But then we went to Australia, and the roof came off the first place we came to. The screaming. I thought, ‘God, it is happening all over again. I’m not going to have a chance to really sing.’ And I realized I had to do it for 10 months.”
In the middle of the tour, George was forced to take a month off for emergency throat surgery to remove a cyst on his vocal chords. During the break, he decided to shift the focus from himself to his songs. “The only thing that really matters is making music that will still mean something to people in 20 or 30 years time,” George commented. In USA Today, he said, “I’d set my sights on American superstardom and getting up there with Michael Jackson and Madonna and Prince, simply because my ego and my ambition needed a new challenge. Once I was getting into that bracket … I realized I didn’t want to be there. There was financial reward but no spiritual reward.”
With the release of Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. I, George made good on his intentions. Instead of his face, the album cover depicted a photo of a crowded beach taken by 1940s photographer Weegee. George declined to do an extensive tour, and gave only three interviews to promote the album. Most surprising, the man who was a fixture on MTV refused to make a video for the album’s first single, “Praying for Time.” With George’s consent, Columbia Records did release a video, but it simply presented the song’s lyrics on a stark black background.
“Praying for Time,” a ballad about the uncaring world he saw around him, showed George exploring a new social consciousness in his songwriting. “There comes a point where you have to write something which you have not written before, in which your interest in any particular topic or subject will inspire you. That’s why, I suppose, eventually most lyricists do approach wider topics than sex and love.”
George explained the roots of the song to Hilburn. The world, he said, seemed like a “place where things are running out of time. Everything is getting more violent. You need more protection all the time and it has got ten so bad that people’s general attitude is, ‘What the hell? I think I am going to hold on to what I’ve got.’ The key line for me is the one about it’s hard to love, but there’s so much to hate.”
Before making Listen Without Prejudice, George went back beyond his soul roots and studied the ’60s rock of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Joni Mitchell. “It made me decide to strip everything down. It was challenging, but it was also fun.”
George told Kevin Connal how he came up with the album title: “What I was mostly talking about was that the album should be listened to by all types and races, and with an open mind. You see, I think radio and video in the last three or four years have veered very much into separate directions, one for white America and one for black America. I think it’s quite an unhealthy trend.”
“Praying for Time” debuted on the Hot 100 at number 41 the week of Sep- tember 1, 1990. Six weeks later, it was the ninth number one for George- counting his hits with Wham!-or the sixth number one of his solo career.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of October 13, 1990
- Praying for Time – George Michael
- Close to You – Maxi Priest
- I Don’t Have the Heart – James Ingram
- Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice
- Black Cat – Janet Jackson
