In fact, as the song moves through a few different sections, one of the few instrumental elements that stays constant is a tambourine shake, the most populist of pop noises. It's not only the lyrics that are speaking to something common in people. Meanwhile, that bass line is bonkers funky in places, and that syncopated keyboard part will get one of your shoulders popping almost imperceptibly up toward your ear, even if you think you don't dance. Very often, you find a song of independence – of freedom – steeped in a kind of "I don't need anybody and I don't care what anybody thinks" autonomous flippancy, structured like a kiss-off. Then a shift: "I will not let you down/so please don't give me up/'cause I would really really love to stick around." Again, while it's declaring independence, it's also admitting vulnerability: part of the reason to preserve your artistic and personal sense of self goes well beyond principle – you do it because to do otherwise can make you desperate and lonely. Then: "Gotta have some faith in the sound/it's the one good thing that I've got." So there's "faith" wordplay, and there's the idea that artists are not just in business, even when they're pop musicians. It begins with just the beat, then the bass and keyboards, and the first appearance of a chant that will recur over and over: "I will not let you down/I will not give you up." It's a song of independence, but its first declaration is of mutuality: a promise and a vow, a sort of "I offer" and "I want" rhythm. But whatever "Freedom '90"'s authorial intent was, what's sometimes lost in the legend of the fabulous "Freedom '90" video is that the song, in and of itself, is great. (I commend to you Ira Madison III's very fine piece at MTV News about George Michael's impact on his thinking about sexuality.) It's not an either/or analysis, of course, given that asking artists to keep in shadow entire parts of their humanity affects both their art and their ability to derive satisfaction from it, so pressure to hide your sexuality and pressure to be a particular variety of pop musician can be braided tightly together. People talked in the aftermath of George Michael's death on Sunday about the overt message of "Freedom '90," which chronicles his efforts to shift the direction of his solo career to the kind of music he really wanted to make, and the covert message, which it seems fair to assume was at least in part about remaining publicly closeted, which he did to some degree until an interview in 1998. The song is about a couple of kinds of freedom the video – directed by David Fincher – existentially represents them.
#GEORGE MICHAEL I DONT WANT YOUR FREEDOM SERIES#
"Freedom '90" is famous for being the rare video of the time that didn't show its telegenic artist on screen, instead using a series of supermodels (including Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Tatjana Patitz) and some less-famous men to lip sync the words. The original "Freedom," though, rejects what the singer calls "freedom" in favor of monogamy: "I don't want your freedom/I don't want to play around." And that, of course, begins with the song title, which borrows and bends the name of one of Wham!'s most '80s-flavored danceable confections.
So by the time George Michael blew up the "Faith" video's jukebox and burned its leather jacket when the chorus swelled in "Freedom '90," he was exploding not only his history but his past nods to it as well. "Faith," which had been a hit three years earlier, was already self-referential: the song begins with a pipe organ playing Wham!'s original "Freedom" before the percussive guitar busts it up, and the video starts with a snippet of "I Want Your Sex" even before that. Later, Michael would create other pop iconography – centering his cheekbones in the resolutely sultry "Careless Whisper" video, tapping his foot against a jukebox and shaking his ass in the "Faith" video, writing "MONOGAMY" in lipstick on a woman's back in the "I Want Your Sex" video.Īnd then came "Freedom '90," where he blew it all up. (If you aren't familiar with it, I hear you say, ".Really?" And I say: "Exactly.") Or maybe the other outfit: his salmon-colored sweatshirt, half-blue, half-white short shorts, and yellow fingerless gloves.
His wavy, dark blond hair, his hoop earring, his white pants and white CHOOSE LIFE t-shirt – and his perfect, prominent, eternally flashing super-white teeth.
If you took the '80s – by which I mean not necessarily the real '80s, but the cultural '80s, the popular idea of the '80s – and you put them over a low flame for many hours until only the essence remained, and then you took that essence and you painted it onto a piece of acetate and you held that acetate up to the light, what you would see is a single still frame of George Michael dancing in Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" video.
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