George Michael‘s career should never be relegated to his pop hits. While the star was routinely placed at the top of the charts, managing to capture audiences within a few bars of his impeccable polished vocal, his abilities strayed far beyond the realms of three-minute masterclasses. One of the most sincere pop acts around, Michael’s talent in the studio and on stage was only usurped by his warm and glowing personality. Sonically, from his time in Wham! to his solo career, his songs have cemented themselves in the cultural consciousness.
When it comes to George Michael’s life and his inspirations, most casual fans will be surprised to know that he would cherry-pick the best material and influences from a range of musical genres, even famously sharing a candid opinion on Joy Division. In fact, when he went on Desert Island Discs with BBC Radio 4 in 2007, he named a ton of his top choices. From Nirvana to Pet Shop Boys, George Michael clearly had some varied and intriguing tastes, and that includes the track he kicked off his Desert Island Discs session with.
One of the top songs he couldn’t live without? The bluesy, soulful, creative tune by Amy Winehouse, ‘Love Is a Losing Game’. He said of the song, “This is the best female vocalist I’ve heard in my entire career, and one of the best writers.” The track acts as one of the finest moments in Winehouse’s tragically short career.
Winehouse was never one to shy away from putting herself on the page, in fact, most of her songs are autobiographical, and this one presented a similar story. Dripping in 1960s glamour and kitchen sink drama, the tune is underpinned by WInehouse’s sharp wit. Never able to truly find the right balance of crazed passion and comfort, Winehouse used her songs as an open therapy session, her passing only adding further tragedy to the lyrics.
Michael’s next statements continue with a beam of hope for the future of her career and sadly feel more prophetic than they were likely intended: “So, all I can say is, please, please understand how brilliant you are. And I wish her every success in the future. And I know she can get past the media. I don’t know if she can get past…other things, but, she’s a fantastic talent, and we should support her.”
It’s almost haunting to hear him speak on the future her career could have had, and the way he so acutely observed the way the media piled on top of her other struggles. As he discussed in the opening, he dealt with a lot of the same issues in his own life, so he probably felt a sense of kinship with the young artist and felt a great deal of sympathy for what she was going through, especially in such a public way.
He speaks to the ways he relates to this after they play the song, “I have a huge propensity for guilt…and I think I finally realized one of the reasons my life has been so extreme and has felt so, in some ways, self-destructive, is that, it sounds arrogant, but I never had any feeling that my talent was never going to let me down…I think in a strange way I’ve spent much of the last 15 or 20 years trying to derail my own career because it never seems to suffer. I suffer like crazy, I suffer all around it…In some ways, I resent that.”
Even though Amy Winehouse and George Michael are no longer around, they share that their legacy will always live on, as their talent won’t let them down. They lived within the lines on the lyric sheet and will continue to do so as time passes on without them.
