"I still believe that music is one of the greatest gifts that God gave to man."
I was sitting at an Irish Pub in the heart of Rome, with a friend and on the television one of the many music channels was on and I heard a song. I got home and searched for that song for days until I finally found it. It stuck with me for some reason and it was only years later when I noticed the lyrics. There was something in me I was still too young to understand. And the lyrics, well... they helped me understand who I really am.
That wasn't the first time I heard George Michael, of course. Actually, our story goes back to when I was about 4 or 5. We had a small electric piano at home and each time you pressed the "demo" button a midi song would start playing and it was loud and I pressed that button at least three hundred times a day. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I realized it was Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!. I can tell you that my whole family hated that song for quite some time because of me!
George Michael was... he fought long and hard to be who he really was: a born performer, a man who was out and proud, who managed to keep his fame and the love of music from his start back in the 80s all the way to today. He had a unique voice and he used that for good. And when he was caught red-handed for doing something wrong? He owned up to his mistakes. A whole world had already and will always sing his Christmas classic and now each Christmas we will remember you too, me personally sadly and with much ache in my heart, but with love.
"I do love Christmas. I always have loved it, ever since I was a child. 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. It's Frank Sinatra who reminds me of Christmas. 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. 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."
I am crying because I hate writing these. I decided right now to take time to write about the people I love before I am forced to do it... this way it is just heartbreaking. I noticed this year that my favorite artists all come from the UK... this shitty started with us losing a wonderful voice and I thought it cannot get any worse and somehow it did. I have, in the background, playing Freedom, Faith, Outside and Amazing on repeat. One More Try always makes me cry... it is a story too close to my heart and I really don't think I can handle Careless Whisper right now. So I sit here, listening to Easier Affair, religiously, it's my mantra and my savior sings to me about not letting the haters get to me, about how we all deserve love and shouldn't let anyone put us down.
"I just hope that I'll stay around musically for as long as I can. I'd love to think that I will still be satisfying myself and other people as a musician until the day I die."
You will be missed and your music will live on within me until I too die. Thank you for the songs you gave us, the path you walked and the fights you fought will not be in vain! Never stop singing, even up there in the sky.
"And I'm dancing with the freaks now
I'm havin', I'm havin' so much fun!"
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