George Michael

22/12/2009

Former Wham! singer opens up about family, his lost childhood and pulling crackers with partner Kenny

By Alex Canfor-Dumas

The late afternoon is deepening around a small, leafy patch of central London. The trees are almost bare and the fallen foliage crackles underfoot.  Outside, the slowly sinking sun is filling George Michael’s spacious home with a deep, warm winter glow.

The festive season approaches. “I do love Christmas!” George says. But he’s not completely content. “Why doesn’t it snow at the right time anymore, like it did in the ‘60s? If it could snow on Christmas Eve or something that would be perfect.”

From Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, the festive season has long been portrayed as knee deep in the white stuff. George is himself part of this Christmas weather mythmaking, thanks to the video for the classic Wham! pop song, ‘Last Christmas’.

The 1984 hit came with a dreamlike film featuring good-looking types frolicking on a snowy mountain, before settling down in their jumpers in front of a roaring fire. An unrequited love story in which George Michael misses out on a girl to his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, ‘Last Christmas’ was the product of a more innocent age, long before events in Californian lavatories brought the singer’s homosexuality out into the public domain.

But both the song and video have been etched into the popular consciousness, inspiring everything from M&S advertising campaigns to American sitcoms. The song stayed at number two in the singles charts for what felt like an age – kept off the top spot only by Band Aid. This year sees the release of a new version of George’s only other Christmas track: ‘December Song’. A wistful, haunting ballad, co-written with long-standing friend David Austin, it is classic George Michael.

Interestingly, the song samples Frank Sinatra at the beginning, rather than Bing Crosby, who some might consider to be a more obvious choice. But George has very personal reasons to choose Ol’ Blue Eyes. “It’s Frank Sinatra who reminds me of Christmas,” he explains. “During the school holidays, when I was a kid, I used to work behind the bar of my dad’s restaurant in Edgware [North London], and he’d always play Sinatra records for the customers. So that association is very strong for me.”

Christmas has always been one of the singer’s favourite times of the year. “I always have loved it, ever since I was a child,” he says. “When I was young both my parents used to work so hard and they always seemed quite stressed to me.

“But at Christmas everyone would calm down and be nice to each other for a few days, and that used to make me feel very safe.”

George was Born (Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou) in Bushey, Hertfordshire, his father was Kyriacos Panayiotou, a Greek Cypriot
restaurateur, and his mother, Lesley Harrison, a dancer.“I didn’t feel particularly secure as a child, which I think came from my parents being so busy and distracted. They were just trying to make a better life for all of us I suppose,” he recalls.

“With ‘December Song’ I wanted to capture that blend of warmth, tinged with a sort of melancholy that I used to feel then. David’s known me forever, so we have a sort of shared memory of those times.”

The charming, animated video for the single shows a solitary boy whose dreams of a magical, animated world come to life at Christmas. In one way it could represent the frightened little boy George was for some parts of his childhood. But it also reaches out to any child in recognition of the fact that, sometimes, living in an adult world can be a lonely experience.

“I’ve talked a lot about this with Kenny,” he says, referring to Kenny Goss, his partner of 13 years. “His experiences – on an emotional level anyway – were very similar to mine and he’s always loved Christmas for the same reason.” How will the singer be spending the holiday season this year? “In London, I’ll be at home with Kenny,” he reveals, scotching press speculation that the pair have split up. “And my family will be coming over too, of course. I love having my family with me on Christmas day.”

Recalling ‘Last Christmas’, I wonder what George thinks whenever he catches some of his old videos on YouTube? “I cringe mostly!” he laughs. “Take that blonde hair. I wanted to have long, blonde, straight hair because I didn’t really want to be me. So the short, dark, curly hair had to go.

“Looking back I suppose I could have done without those curtain rings in my ears as well. And the shorts with the shuttlecocks down them too. I mean, how stupid did that look? But then again, Andrew and I were just young guys having fun and that’s an age when you’re still experimenting with your image, so of course mistakes were made. To be honest, I don’t think I was ever really confident about the way I looked in those days. But the one thing I did believe in, the thing I absolutely had no doubt about, was my talent as a songwriter. Once I had my foot in the door of the music industry, nothing was going to shift me.”

There was one moment, he says, when he knew he had arrived. “When I was 19 I wrote ‘Freedom’ – the original version – and I thought, ‘I can’t believe I’ve just done that!’. I was absolutely thrilled.  Because until then I had no real understanding of my abilities, but with ‘Freedom’ I started to take myself seriously as a writer.”

So where does that leave ‘Careless Whisper’?  That anthem to doomed love, written on the number 32 bus as he made his way to a Watford cinema where he was working as an usher, reached number one in more than 25 countries and sold in excess of six million copies. George doesn’t sing it at his concerts – the audience does it for him.

“I’m still a bit puzzled about why it’s made such an impression on people,” he confesses. “Is it because so many people have cheated on their partners? Is that why they connect with it? It’s ironic that a song that has come to define me in some way should have been written right at the beginning of my career when I was still so young. I was only 17 and didn’t really know much about anything – and certainly nothing much about relationships.”

GEORGE says he’s learned a thing or two about the music business. What counsel would he give, then, to any young musician setting out on a similar road to his own? “I’d advise anyone to understand that fame, and all the attention you’ll receive, won’t satisfy you for any length of time if you don’t really believe in what you’re doing with regards to your music,” he says. “And if you really do have talent, recognise that as a real privilege and hang on to it, no matter what.”

There seems little danger of George being consumed by celebrity – if this month’s release of Live in London, the first-ever live concert DVD of his career, is anything to go by. “This is the first time – and probably the last – I’ll ever release a film of myself in concert.  But I think it stands as a great testament to that experience and I really wanted it to be ready for the fans in time for Christmas,” he says. The concert, which includes songs from George’s entire career, was filmed last August at London’s Earls Court Arena during the final two nights of his 25 Live Tour. The DVD includes a behind the scenes documentary I’d Know Him A Mile Off – and one scene in particular that he finds hilarious.

It shows George being driven to the back gates of the venue for his last night on stage. His vehicle is stopped by an over-zealous security guard who doesn’t believe the passenger is the performer everyone has come to see. Not being recognised would mortify most pop stars. But not George Michael. “Oh my God, it still cracks me up every time I think about it!” he laughs. “And how great that it was caught on film.”