George Michael: My Hero

So this is Christmas.

We are divided, between those who are easily swayed by the mob mentality (Chrrriiiistmas they scream, eggnog drunk), and those who deem this season a massive waste of time and money.

I would fall in to the latter (because I hate spending money and group projects are the worst) except this time of year just hits me right in the feelings. The MAGIC of it! I love it. Glitter gets everywhere. Everything smells of cinnamon. We fill the dark with sparkles. The same songs are wheeled out and dusted off again for another year. Bloody love it all.

I see from the death-stares I receive when I’m being a bit too Christmassy, that the hate is strong at this time of year. For some, family gatherings are Dante’s tenth circle of Hell.  Rituals can be claustrophobic rather than comforting. People fall out. Everyone is exhausted. If this is you, maybe you need a Christmas hero. Someone to remind you the world is actually secretly great, sometimes. I don’t mean Jesus (although he is a great lad). I mean our other Christmas hero. It’s George Michael, ofcourse.

George Michael: the Man Behind the Wham!

Firstly, he wrote one of the best songs of all time, Last Christmas. Now we get to live in a world that includes that song, and perhaps even more importantly, that video! Big frizzy hair, check. Going for après-ski martinis in the cabin, check. Wham! were that blessed combination: silly and talented. Being silly and being talented should go together, hand in hand, always, and never be without one another.

Then there’s his generosity. After his untimely death last year, his quiet acts of charity and kindness came to light. From supporting the Terence Higgins Trust, to donating the royalties from Last Christmas to charity, to anonymously giving people money for paying off student debt and funding IVF treatment, he just went around making things better.

And ofcourse, there’s the scandals. What I love most about him was his frankly alarming level of honesty. After being caught for various misdemeanors (the Snappy Snaps incident was a low point) his response was essentially to say, yeah I did that. His answer to being arrested in America for a ‘lewd act’ in a toilet was to make a big sexy music video, re-writing the incident into a camp debacle, pretty policemen included. He was dragged viciously through the gutter by the press in 1998, and I think the venom really came out because he was famous, rich, talented, gay and worst of all, lacking in shame. A riot of offensiveness! The nerve of the man.

He dealt with it in style, and gave a great big F U to the haters. He also said in interviews that he doubted his fans really gave a hoot about it, and I think he was absolutely right, and I give him props for knowing it.

I don’t think I even need to mention his extraordinary song writing talent, but I’ll just add, he wrote Careless Whisper on the bus home from work when he was only eighteen. How many people have swayed to that song on a sticky dance-floor wearing only one shoe, wailing this song is about me? He gave us what we didn’t even know we needed.

When you need a quick break from tinsel and arguments, say around 8pm on Christmas Day, I recommend listening to the George Michael episode of BBC Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs, from 2007. His company is charming – articulate, caring, no-nonsense, honest, thoughtful. For his desert island luxury item, he chose short stories by Doris Lessing (another brutally honest type), and ran away with my heart.

RIP George. There won’t be another one like him.