“Michael recalls his notable songs” was published in The Baltimore Sun on July 28, 2008.
“Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” (by Wham!)
Admit it, you love this pina colada-flavored romp. Aretha Franklin did: after she heard it, she asked Michael to write and produce her next record. “I was 20, and way too scared,” Michael recalled. He got up the nerve to duet with the Queen in 1987, on the No. 1 hit, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).
“Freedom” (by Wham!)
“The tone of that vocal is almost an 18-year-old black girl,” Michael said. “Considering how closeted I was, the fact that I still absolutely knew that had to be delivered almost with a girl’s yearning, to make it sound like ‘Stop in the Name of Love’ or something… . The voice always served the song.”
“I Want Your Sex“
“I hate that song,” Michael said. “I think it sounds like bad Prince. I was so obsessed with Prince at the time, with the sparsity of those records.” Actually, we still dig your take on his funkiness, George.
“Jesus to a Child”
Michael’s elegy for his late partner, Anselmo Feleppa, is heavily influenced by Brazilian music. “I have to admit, I don’t listen to South American music as much anymore because it’s still quite painful. But sometimes.”
“Freek”
“I genuinely believe I’ve never written anything that felt nihilistic,” Michael said. Except once: “‘Freek!’ That was a warning about children’s access to the Internet and how disgusting it was, and what the future would be like if we don’t protect them.”
“Outside”
This song, which Michael wrote after his arrest for cruising in an L.A. park, is one of many newer songs he writes with his gay male fans in mind. “It’s for them, not just for me. I feel it’s my responsibility, especially having wasted time … to write songs about a non-monogamous relationship, to write about being arrested, to write about subjects which aren’t necessarily what your female audience wants to hear.”
