The ‘Patience’ of George Michael

The trouble with George Michael is not that he had to admit to being homosexual after building a career as a singing heartthrob with the boy duo Wham. It is that he had been trying all these years to live down the popularity of his big hit Careless Whisper. The song showed him up as a natural balladeer. Think Sinatra and in recent times Michael Bublé who certainly scored big with his version of Michael’s other successful ballad Kissing a Fool. Despite this though, Michael, wanted to rock, dance and be a soulful rapper.

As a result, the years after Careless Whisper show an uneven body of work where hints of innate greatness flicker out amidst his conscious attempts to be different, relevant, controversial or what he perceives as cool. I do not know if I Want Your Sex will ever be considered a song for the ages in some future time but it did generate sales and lots of media coverage for Michael. So did Jesus to a Child, Monkey, Father Figure and Freeek! among his other works.

Freeek! in its 2004 version appears in Michael’s latest album titled Patience. As always, he baits his audience with themes that might elicit mainly dislike.Patience has songs that straddle blasphemy: "If Jesus Christ is alive and well/ then how come John and Elvis are dead," he sings in John and Elvis are Dead; that condemn the American invasion of Iraq: "Tony, Tony, Tony, I know that you’re horny, but there’s something ‘bout that Bush ain’t right," he lets out in Shoot the Dog; and it is also his most blatantly homosexual album.

Starting with pictures of two young boys and of two wedding rings engraved with the word "Amor" on the cover and down to songs like American Angel, which says, "Bless the day you came into my life/ I will remember horny cowboy with your stars and stripes/ bringing the light into my day with that Texan smile" or "My mother had a brother/ over-sensitive and kind/ seems it all became too much for him/ it seems he took his own life" in My Mother Had a Brother, about suicide in the family

A true George Michael fan who has religiously followed the artist’s career should be able to bring a clearer background on situations expressed in the songs; Mama’s gone and got herself a new man/ it’s a shame/ he’s the same/ Mama please stop pretending/ this time it won’t end in tears in Cars & Trains or, can he tell me who is the Anselmo he sings about in the poignant Please Send Me Someone? But even without explanations, it is so obvious that Michael has laid his life open in Patience. The songs are open, harsh, almost confessional and I find it incredible that they are set against trendy music made for the clubs or the fashion show ramp. So much life in the music. So much pain in his words.

There is no hit of the magnitude of Careless Whisper here but I have to hand it to George Michael for putting something together that probably cost him blood and guts. In the end I think he tries to give the listener an answer on why he chose to give and to risk so much Patience. These are the words he sings in the sad summing up cut titled Through. "So hear me now, I’ve enough of these chains/ I know they’re of my making/ No one else to blame for where I stand today/I’ve no memory of truth/ But suddenly the audience is so cruel/ Oh God, hey God, you know why I’m through."

Maybe he wrote Through because of what I read somewhere that Patience is George Michael’s last commercially released album. Life has been very good to him so from now on, all of his new recordings will be available for free on the web. It will be a case of "download all you want" to everybody around the world. Nice, even if this might be an artist’s reaction to dwindling sales. Still I cannot help but think that something so easily available also ends up dull and unappealing, which might just happen to his music.

Let us wait and see what happens.