Daily Times

Wham!, “Wake me up before you go-go” – though they already had four monster hits and even a Top 20 single, “Megamix,” in their native UK, George Michael and Andrew Ridgely didn’t make their United States breakthrough until this giddy, finger-snapping, jitterbugging chart-topper.

Inspired by a note Ridgely left his mom – tired from a night of clubbing, he wrote “up up” in a drowsy stupor and appended “go go” as a joke – Michael made giddy bubblegum that fits right into America’s post-Big Chill Motown-era nostalgia craze. “I think ‘Go-Go’ is undoubtedly the most remembered Wham! song because it is that much more stupid than anything else,” Michael once said with a laugh.

“Careless whisper” – Before Wham! disbanded, Michael began planting the seeds for his even-more thriving solo career with “Careless whisper,” a soulful, saxophone-laden ballad. Still, the song had a bit of Wham! in it, having been co-written by his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley when the pair were teenagers and before their duo took off. The track was a Number One hit internationally, thanks in large part to the deep pathos of the infidelity-themed lyrics. “I’m still a bit puzzled why it’s made such an impression on people,” Michael said in a 2009 interview. “Is it because so many people have cheated on their partners? Is that why they connect with it? I have no idea, but it’s ironic that this song – which has come to define me in some way – should have been written right at the beginning of my career when I was still so young. I was only 17 and didn’t really know much about anything – and certainly nothing much about relationships.”

Wham!, “Last Christmas” – it’s rare for a modern pop hit to break into the Christmas standard canon, but Wham! – and later, Mariah Carey – did just that with holiday break-up anthem “Last Christmas.” The bittersweet tune has become a seasonal classic and one of the biggest-selling singles in the UK not to actually reach Number One. Over the years, the song has been covered by a range of artists, including Jimmy Eat World, Hilary Duff, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne and Carly Rae Jepsen.

“Faith” – after the end of Wham! a year before, it was anyone’s guess what would be next for Michael. At 24, he ended up releasing a classic album, named for one of his most memorable and enduring hits, “Faith.” Written, produced and arranged by Michael himself, the song found him tackling classic rock & roll via a Bo Diddley-inspired beat and an Elvis Presley warble. The track was a landmark for the pop star, becoming the biggest-selling single of 1988.

“Father Figure” – Michael set out to write a midtempo dance track for this Faith single. But a fluke in the studio that muted the snare drum “changed the whole entire mood of the track,” he said later. “Suddenly it just seemed really dreamy.” He finished writing the song – a pledge to clean up his act for a loved one – in that vein. It became what Michael called “the most original-sounding thing on the album.”

“Freedom! ’90” – still a few years from 30, George Michael was trying to dodge nearly a decade of pop stardom like a monkey on his back at the time of “Freedom! ’90.” “I think there’s something you should know/I think it’s time I stopped the show,” he sings. “There’s something deep inside of me. There’s someone I forgot to be.” In turn, the music video for “Freedom! ’90” literally set his past ablaze by burning the jukebox, leather jacket and guitar made famous by his “Faith” video. “At some point in your career, the situation between yourself and the camera reverses. For a certain number of years, you court it and you need it, but ultimately, it needs you more, and it’s a bit like a relationship,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “The minute that happens, it turns you off.”

“Jesus to a Child” – Michael paid poignant tribute to his late lover Anselmo Feleppa, who had died from an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage several years earlier, with this slow-burning ballad. “Heaven sent/And Heaven stole/You smiled at me/Like Jesus to a child,” Michael sings. The star found himself unable to write for more than a year after Feleppa’s 1993 death but reportedly penned “Jesus to a Child” in a sudden burst of inspiration. From the time he came out as homosexual in 1998 up through his final performances, he would dedicate the song to Feleppa.

“Fastlove” – the years leading up to “Fastlove” were dark for Michael. In the ’90s, he weathered the death of his partner Anselmo Feleppa and an unsuccessful court battle with his label, Sony.