From Faith to Freedom
Considering that it was recorded during a year-long Ecstasy binge, one would expect George Michael’s 1987 smash, Faith, to be a lighter affair. And in fact, to the casual listener, it does sound like a party; Depeche Mode-inspired synthesized drums pop up in almost half the tracks, and a good deal of it is sublimely danceable. But this is an album about confusion, darkness, addiction and despair. It speaks to Michael, and his audience, coming to terms with a post-AIDS world; leaving the plastic 80’s and entering the socially conscious 90’s. Faith lies somewhere between the party’s crescendo and its death throes; between the high and the hangover.
Tired of living in the shadow of Wham!, George Michael spent the mid-1980’s trying to escape his teenybopper image. After a string of successful “one off” singles, including his Grammy-winning 1987 hit with Aretha Franklin, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” Michael felt confident enough to begin crafting his first solo album. However, in spite of his professional triumphs, his life was a mess. For starters, he was still quite closeted and continued to date women to fool himself as well as the public. As a result of this inner turmoil, Michael was also abusing drugs, namely MDMA. Providing added stress was the fact that his record company was quite uneasy with his plan to steer his sound away from sugary pop and in a more R&B direction.
Given what was happening in his life at the time, the confusion and self-loathing that run, hand in hand, throughout the album come as no surprise. Upon closer reading, songs like “Monkey” and “One More Try” are quite blatant in their dealing with this subject matter. The chorus of the former is as follows:
Why can’t you do it?
Why can’t you set your monkey free?
Always giving into it
Do you love the monkey or do you love me?
Why can’t you do it?
This chorus is repeated at least 5 times, and approaches a mantra for self-flagellation. The conventional reading of this song is that the protagonist is in a tortured love affair with a drug addled paramour who is unable to get rid of the figurative monkey on their back. But the fact that Michael appears alone in the video for this song, and that its lyrics never seem to address anyone else but the singer (he says “you” but doesn’t mean it in any real external sense) leads me to suspect that it’s closer to a sort of personal exorcism. Michael is asking himself – why can’t he give up the drugs? The men? Does his use of one stave off the desire for another?
“One More Try” is more of the same, although more beautifully fleshed out. I’ve never understood why this song doesn’t receive the attention of other celebrated ballads of its time, like ”Vision of Love” or “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Michael’s voice explores a considerable range during the song, without ever devolving into melisma. In it, he is wary of returning to a former lover (who he refers to as “Teacher”) but winds up deciding to give the romance “one more try.”
When you were just a stranger
And I was at your feet
I didn’t feel the danger
Now I feel the heat
That look in your eyes
Telling me no
So you think that you love me
Know that you need me
I wrote the song, I know it’s wrong
Just let me go…
Poor George fell hard for some Adonis who was just in it for the good times, leaving him with a broken heart. This other man had the power in the relationship; God-like enough for worship, and too beautiful to be tied down to one person. Michael is experiencing the downside of some freewheeling pansexual 1980’s “fuck it if it feels good” affair. I see this song as a bookend, or the other side of the coin to, “Father Figure.” In “Father Figure”, he takes the role of the “Teacher” and tells his pupil to put their “tiny hand” in his and that he’ll be their all. It’s telling that “Father Figure” appears on the album before “One More Try.” It’s as if Michael is giving us the straight pop star we expect at first, then peeling the layers away to reveal his vulnerability.
Speaking of relations, you can’t discuss Faith or more specifically, “I Want Your Sex”, without addressing AIDS. “I Want Your Sex” is actually three songs, not one; the single and video we’re all familiar with is just one part of this trilogy. The other two versions are essentially re-workings of each other, one with a more straightforward funk feel and the other in a more jazzy arrangement. MTV refused to play the video during daytime hours, and when they did, it was always preceded by a disclaimer in which Michael proclaimed that the song was “about monogamy.” In the video, he goes as far as to scrawl the m-word over lover Kathy Jeung’s naked back in red lipstick. All of this to-do was clearly a result of the AIDS epidemic, and its destruction of the free love ethic that permeated youth culture since the late 1960’s. “I Want Your Sex” is, at its core, an expression of sexual frustration; basically, it’s an anthem for blue balls. (“I can’t wait much longer/I’m losing control/I want your sex”) On “Kissing a Fool”, Michael further delves into his feelings of insecurity in romantic relationships. (I always hated this song – it’s the kind of Diane Warren schmaltz we’d later come to expect from the likes of Celine Dion.)
The other songs on Faith touched upon the social ills that were plaguing the Western world at the end of the 80’s. “Hand to Mouth” and “Look at Your Hands” both deal with poverty, and feeling neglected in a world that’s ruled by capitalism. It’s interesting that Janet Jackson’s smash Rhythm Nation 1814, which dealt exclusively with these issues, was released not more than 18 months after Faith. These were clearly issues that were on the minds of young people both making and buying records in the late 1980’s. Social issues were making their way into pop music in a way that they hadn’t earlier in the decade.
Faith…an album made by a confused man during a confusing time when he had all the drugs and money and men and women in the world available to him. A testament to youth, a prayer for redemption even, perhaps? Depeche Mode-synths aside, there’s a timeless quality to it that’s caused it to sell millions of copies since its release 23 years ago. Michael managed to catch magic in a bottle in his Ecstasy haze. Before the too cool for school aloofness of “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1”, he was vulnerable for a moment, and let us share in his inner turmoil. And turmoil is universal, pop star or not.
