George Michael: The Thing About Faith

I've been waiting for another moment to write about George Michael.

This is it.

More than three decades after George walked onto stages around the world during his Faith tour, we're going to get to see him there again. George Michael: The Faith Tour, a new concert film built around never-before-seen footage shot at Paris-Bercy in 1988, is headed to theaters. A companion live album featuring 18 previously unreleased recordings from those Paris performances arrives November 6.

For George Michael fans—and I have been one for more than 40 years—that's a pretty big deal.

But the prospect of seeing George at that particular moment again has me thinking about something beyond the concert itself.

Because I remember that George.

The leather jacket. The aviators. The stubble. The cross earring. The jukebox. The swagger. And yes, that glorious ass which gave many of us a serious case of Levi-envy.  At 25 years old, George Michael looked like a man who had figured absolutely everything out.

We know now that he hadn't.

And perhaps that's what makes the opportunity to see him again at that moment so fascinating.

We're not watching him with 1988 eyes anymore.

The guy behind the Ray-Ban 50 Aviators 

George Michael's talent transcended generations, genres and languages. He wasn't simply a great pop star. He was a songwriter, producer and vocalist whose abilities were recognized and respected by some of the best musicians in the world.

He was also focused. Smart. Intentional. Occasionally cocky. Sometimes stubborn. Funny. Sexy. Politically outspoken. Generous. Defiant.

And deeply troubled.

That's important to say, because I don't believe we do George any favors by turning him into either a saint or a tragic figure.

He was much more interesting than either.

There were demons he never seemed completely able to outrun. Some went back to his youth. Others became tangled in his sexuality, relationships, grief and the extraordinary consequences of fame. He could be remarkably self-aware about all of it and still seemingly be unable to save himself from himself.

I've always found that contradiction fascinating.

Here was a man capable of extraordinary control over his work who sometimes appeared to have considerably less control over himself.

But when George had something he needed to say, he knew exactly where to put it.

In the music.

George Michael was private. His music wasn't.

For all the years people spent trying to figure George Michael out, I'm not convinced he was particularly difficult to understand.

I think we were looking in the wrong place.

If you wanted to know George Michael, you didn't need a tabloid.

You needed a stereo.

Listen to the lyrics.

They're practically a map.

What he hoped for. What he feared. What he regretted. What he believed in. Who he loved.

Sex. Shame. Faith. Loneliness. Politics. Desire. Loss. Defiance.

It's all there.

And that's something I came to understand differently as I got older.

George's biggest desire was to connect.

I believe that mattered enormously to him. But connection and access aren't the same thing, and I don't think George ever believed loving his music entitled us to unrestricted access to the man who made it.

He gave us what he wanted us to know in the place where he expressed himself best.

The rest, to him, was none of our business.

Fair enough.

The music kept changing because the artist did.

There's a reason Faith doesn't sound like Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1.

And Listen Without Prejudice doesn't sound like Older.

And Older doesn't sound like Patience.

Of course artists evolve musically. But listening across George Michael's catalog now, I hear more than changing production or musical styles.

I hear different versions of the man.

Different headspaces.

Faith gave the world a George Michael who appeared astonishingly comfortable being looked at.

A few years later, he was asking us to stop looking and listen.

That's quite a journey in a remarkably short period of time.

And then came everything else. 

He kept writing it down.

We kept singing along.

Perhaps we didn't always realize how much he was telling us.

Watching Faith differently

That's what makes this newly rediscovered footage feel like more than nostalgia to me.

Yes, I want to see the concert.

Of course I do.

I want the voice. I want the songs. I want the swagger. I want to watch one of the greatest live singers of his generation standing at the beginning of an enormous solo career and absolutely owning the stage.

And I want the sunglasses.

I'm still a fan. I'm allowed. 😂

But I'll also be watching the 25-year-old George Michael knowing something I couldn't possibly have known the first time around.

I know who came afterward.

I know about the man who pushed against his own image. The artist who fought his record company. The man who eventually spoke openly about his sexuality. The political voice. The philanthropist. The provocateur. The man who could laugh at himself. The man who sometimes made terrible decisions. The artist who endured devastating loss and put some of that grief into extraordinarily beautiful music.

I know there was considerably more happening behind those sunglasses than most of us understood.

And that's why I don't want the return of the Faith tour simply to remind us how famous George Michael once was.

I'd rather it remind us how good he was.

And perhaps give us another opportunity to understand him.

One more listen

As much deserves to be written about George Michael after his passing as while he was here.

Perhaps more.

Because much of the noise surrounding him is gone now.

The headlines. The speculation. The scandals. The obsession with his sexuality and his private life. The relentless machinery that comes with being one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

Eventually, all of that gets quieter.

And what remains is the work.

That's where George Michael always made the most sense to me anyway.

This isn't meant to be the definitive explanation of George Michael. I don't think there is one. It's simply what I've observed after more than four decades of listening to an artist who mattered enormously to me.

Others may hear something different.

That's the wonderful thing about music.

But I suspect many people who truly listened to George all those years may understand exactly what I mean.

Maybe we knew him better than we thought.

He told us everything.

We just had to listen.

Without prejudice. 🎤

Photo credit: Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries.