Wham! "Make It Big" (1984): Track by Track!

<v Speaker 1>Hi, this is Chris Weber's cousin.
<v Speaker 2>That's Sloan and you're listening to the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 2>Be Serious Podcast.
<v Speaker 3>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley you Can't
<v Speaker 3>Be Serious Podcast. Guys, it's early April twenty twenty four.
<v Speaker 3>In early April twenty nineteen, my best buddy and I
<v Speaker 3>got together, sat on his back porch and decided what
<v Speaker 3>we were going to do for our new conceived idea
<v Speaker 3>for a podcast five years ago this month, boys and girls.
<v Speaker 3>And that means that if we were WHAM, we would
<v Speaker 3>be just about to break up.
<v Speaker 1>That's right. They were kind of a bright shining star.
<v Speaker 3>There was a plan. They brought the plan to Fruition
<v Speaker 3>and said we're done.
<v Speaker 1>That's it.
<v Speaker 3>But boys and girls, we have no intention of being done.
<v Speaker 3>I will stay with Jason until the end of time.
<v Speaker 1>Oh d you you could drag me to Helen back
<v Speaker 1>just as long as we are together.
<v Speaker 3>Just wake me up before you go down. All right,
<v Speaker 3>boys and girls, we are here to talk about Wham. Now.
<v Speaker 3>We have already covered George Michael in some detail. We
<v Speaker 3>actually covered him our very first season August of twenty twenty.
<v Speaker 3>We re released that last year, July of twenty twenty three,
<v Speaker 3>because it was the thirty fifth anniversary of Faith. So
<v Speaker 3>if you want to check out a little more history
<v Speaker 3>on George Michael, go back and check that episode out.
<v Speaker 3>I listened to it.
<v Speaker 1>I listened to it today too.
<v Speaker 3>We're like, oh, hey, I didn't remember that, and so
<v Speaker 3>this was very helpful. But it's a great episode. Go
<v Speaker 3>back and check it out. We compared Faith to in
<v Speaker 3>Excess's Kick Right, And today we are covering Wham's Make
<v Speaker 3>It Big to Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair.
<v Speaker 1>I got my yellow fingerless gloves on. I got my
<v Speaker 1>Choose Live shirt on. I got my Nutter shorts on.
<v Speaker 3>I love it when you wear your Nutter shirt.
<v Speaker 1>I got the Boom Boom in my Heart's Let's do this.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So we are going to talk about the second
<v Speaker 3>re least from Wham to give a little bit of
<v Speaker 3>history before we get into it. These are a couple
<v Speaker 3>of guys who almost weren't anything. Yeah, but for and
<v Speaker 3>O Ridgely there would be no George.
<v Speaker 1>Michael, that's an absolute fact.
<v Speaker 3>But for George Michael, there would be no Wham and
<v Speaker 3>butt for Wham, there would be no, George Michael again.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, I'll tell you what. If the teacher had not said,
<v Speaker 1>will somebody look after the new boy and Andrew ridgely
<v Speaker 1>being the only person who raised his hand in their
<v Speaker 1>sixth grade class.
<v Speaker 3>Twelve year old boys, there would be no wham twelve
<v Speaker 3>year old kids and a little awkward oreos something Vilenobo's
<v Speaker 3>something something Greek. It's all Greek to me, it is
<v Speaker 3>all Greek. But yeah, he showed up new kid at
<v Speaker 3>school and the teacher said, who would like to volunteer
<v Speaker 3>to mentor youngos? And Andrew originally raised his hand. They
<v Speaker 3>became fast friends, and George was the shy guy, Andrew
<v Speaker 3>was the confident, good looking kid, and George looked up
<v Speaker 3>to him. And George was raised in a Greek family
<v Speaker 3>two generations earlier. His great grandfather was a shepherd. I
<v Speaker 3>mean that's shepherding the sheep in Greece is what his
<v Speaker 3>grandfather was doing. And so his dad worked hard to
<v Speaker 3>establish himself in England in the UK and established a
<v Speaker 3>restaurant and expected him to work in the restaurant. But George,
<v Speaker 3>he had a desire to do something more. And his
<v Speaker 3>dad said, why would anybody want to listen to you.
<v Speaker 3>You can't even sing.
<v Speaker 1>That is the one thing I still cannot buy on this.
<v Speaker 1>I just can't believe it.
<v Speaker 3>So when Andrew originally says I want to drop out
<v Speaker 3>of school and we need to form a band, George said, no,
<v Speaker 3>I don't think I can do it. And Andrew said, yes,
<v Speaker 3>you can. You can do this.
<v Speaker 1>You're forming a band.
<v Speaker 3>And he's like, my dad really doesn't think I can
<v Speaker 3>do this. And he goes, he's wrong, you can do this.
<v Speaker 3>Let's do it. And so that's exactly what they did
<v Speaker 3>to eighteen nineteen year old kids. Drop out of school,
<v Speaker 3>they get welfare, and they start writing songs. They had
<v Speaker 3>started with a group called the Executives, which had Andrew's
<v Speaker 3>brother in it, but they didn't amount to much. That
<v Speaker 3>left Andrew and George to form Wham.
<v Speaker 1>I kind of heard the rest of the story on that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah tell me So, I've read about half of Andrew
<v Speaker 1>Ridgeley's biography yesterday while I was waiting for my car
<v Speaker 1>that can be fixed. So Andrew was in a band
<v Speaker 1>with his brother and some kind of older guys and
<v Speaker 1>they needed a permanent drummer, and so Andrew's like, George
<v Speaker 1>has a set of drums. I've seen it.
<v Speaker 3>He called him yog, Yeah, yog.
<v Speaker 1>The funny story there is that when George was telling
<v Speaker 1>him how to pronounce his name, he's saying, it's kind
<v Speaker 1>of like yogurt yor eos, right, yogurt, and so he
<v Speaker 1>just started calling him yog from that. But Uh, so
<v Speaker 1>George had a set of drums. Andrew knew that because
<v Speaker 1>when he went over to George's house for the first time,
<v Speaker 1>he banged on his drums and George was like, don't
<v Speaker 1>do that.
<v Speaker 3>Uh did you play my drums? Uh no, I don't
<v Speaker 3>know what you're.
<v Speaker 1>Talking about drums. But they had very strict guidelines of
<v Speaker 1>when he could hit the drums in his house and
<v Speaker 1>when he could not. And Andrew just was banging away.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, so they needed a drummer for this band,
<v Speaker 1>and so Andrew's like, well, my friend Yog, he's got
<v Speaker 1>a drum set, let's bring him in. They brought him in.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, nah, nope, not gonna cut it. And so
<v Speaker 1>that's when Andrew's like, screw you, guys, I'm out.
<v Speaker 3>Serendipitous, very serendipitous.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, he said that day, we are starting our own band.
<v Speaker 3>Guess what guys, we're here to talk to you about
<v Speaker 3>a rap group.
<v Speaker 1>Everybody took a look at me.
<v Speaker 4>I'm going to I may not have a time, but
<v Speaker 4>I have.
<v Speaker 5>A good time on Hey.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about this in our Faith episode Wham Slash.
<v Speaker 1>George Michael has been successful singing rap, gospel, R and B, pop, rock.
<v Speaker 3>Funk, dance, jazz, everything, no doubt about it. Everything.
<v Speaker 1>It's incredible.
<v Speaker 3>But he started as a rapper.
<v Speaker 5>Well, and why can't you let them know?
<v Speaker 3>So their original music, big song that they thought was
<v Speaker 3>going to make them they they called Wham Rap. It
<v Speaker 3>was released as a single. It didn't do especially well. Right,
<v Speaker 3>They had signed a contract, a record recording contract with
<v Speaker 3>Innervision at that point. So this is the way that
<v Speaker 3>we can become musicians. This is what we've got to
<v Speaker 3>do to make a record. So they signed with the Innervision,
<v Speaker 3>released Wham Rap. It didn't do very well, and then
<v Speaker 3>they had another song called Young Guns. Now this was
<v Speaker 3>kind of their make it or break it song. This
<v Speaker 3>was the you know, hey, if this doesn't go anywhere,
<v Speaker 3>we're going to have to cut you guys loose. And
<v Speaker 3>what happened was Young Guns started moving its way up
<v Speaker 3>the chart. It got up to forty two, yep, and
<v Speaker 3>it stalled yep. And it was really critical that they
<v Speaker 3>get into the top forty. Yeah, and there it is
<v Speaker 3>just hovering right outside the top forty and not moving
<v Speaker 3>for weeks. And George, I mean, he's depressed. He is
<v Speaker 3>sitting alone in their tiny little apartment thinking maybe I
<v Speaker 3>was wrong about everything, maybe I'm not a musician, maybe
<v Speaker 3>this isn't what is for me. And then serendipity, another
<v Speaker 3>huge serendipitous moment. Top of the Pops. Now, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>for those in America not familiar with the British music scene,
<v Speaker 3>this is like American bandstand, right, This is like Dick
<v Speaker 3>Clark calls you on the phone, right. And so Top
<v Speaker 3>of the Pops calls them they've got a nearly top
<v Speaker 3>forty hit. I don't know how they're on the list,
<v Speaker 3>but they're they're there in England and maybe they're an
<v Speaker 3>easy next door call. But whoever the scheduled group was
<v Speaker 3>for Top of the Pops dropped out and they said
<v Speaker 3>can you perform tomorrow?
<v Speaker 1>First of all, that band, how do you not move
<v Speaker 1>Heaven and Earth to appear on Top of the Pops.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>For whatever reason, they didn't, and they called these guys
<v Speaker 1>and they were like, yes.
<v Speaker 3>We will be there, yep. And so it was George
<v Speaker 3>and Andrew and they had two female singers with them
<v Speaker 3>that they really they took inspiration from Human League and
<v Speaker 3>they were like, we just like the look of two
<v Speaker 3>guys and two girls. It just is a good look.
<v Speaker 3>They literally developed their dance routine in George's parents' back room.
<v Speaker 3>No choreographer was there, there was no setup. It was okay, guys,
<v Speaker 3>how about you do this and I do this, and
<v Speaker 3>we do this together, and that was it. Can you
<v Speaker 3>imagine being a nineteen year old kid about to go
<v Speaker 3>and debut on top of the.
<v Speaker 1>Pops, maybe the opportunity of a lifetime.
<v Speaker 3>And once again George is petrified, and Andrew says, let's
<v Speaker 3>go do this. He's confident, he's ready to go, And
<v Speaker 3>George goes out there and plays the part. He gets
<v Speaker 3>up and he dances and goes crazy and it is
<v Speaker 3>literally an overnight success for them.
<v Speaker 1>They shoot up the charts.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, and now it's oh, we're stuck in this contract
<v Speaker 3>with Innervision, right. They bring on a new manager who
<v Speaker 3>gets them out of that contract, signs with CBS Records
<v Speaker 3>and they come out with their first album called Fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, the night before they played Top of
<v Speaker 1>the Pops, they stayed in this crappy little hotel room
<v Speaker 1>and there was a child's bed and they had to
<v Speaker 1>draw like who gets the child's George shot it.
<v Speaker 3>Short pizza crust.
<v Speaker 6>That's right.
<v Speaker 1>So the night before he performs on Top of the
<v Speaker 1>Pops he sleeps in a miniature bed.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, he's shaking his hips around like he's trying to
<v Speaker 3>relieve sort of lower back pain, I think. So they
<v Speaker 3>re release Slam Rap and it moves up to number
<v Speaker 3>eight now and they have a couple of other good
<v Speaker 3>hits off of Fantastic, and they're recognized because number one,
<v Speaker 3>they're white guys doing rap, and number two, they're doing
<v Speaker 3>it with a social conscience, Like their songs are about
<v Speaker 3>what it's like in England for the youth those days.
<v Speaker 3>At that point, sixteen to nineteen year olds had the
<v Speaker 3>biggest unemployment rate that they had ever had in UK history,
<v Speaker 3>and so that was part of what they sang about,
<v Speaker 3>among other things. And so they're being recognized for kind
<v Speaker 3>of doing this cutting edge style of music right and
<v Speaker 3>a social commentary and so what does George Michael do. Well,
<v Speaker 3>what we've learned through history, he always does. He says,
<v Speaker 3>I'm tired of being placed in this box. I would
<v Speaker 3>like to put myself in another box. And they come
<v Speaker 3>out with a song called Club Trapacanna.
<v Speaker 5>Have you seen this video?
<v Speaker 3>I have seen parts of it. Yes.
<v Speaker 1>It looks like the greatest time that two twenty year
<v Speaker 1>olds could have.
<v Speaker 3>I can't imagine. Like I saw some of the guy
<v Speaker 3>the celebrities that would stay there. I saw like Billy
<v Speaker 3>d Williams with Grace Jones, and I'm just like, if
<v Speaker 3>you had the means to go to this place, this
<v Speaker 3>is where you would go all the time.
<v Speaker 1>So this was shot. This video was shot at Ibitha
<v Speaker 1>in Spain, which is like this resort town.
<v Speaker 3>It's like Miami.
<v Speaker 1>Really Yeah, sun drenched babes, drinks, pools, everything you think
<v Speaker 1>would be a great weekend. It looks awesome.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Then the press starts making fun of them, or
<v Speaker 3>if you're from England, starts taking the piss out of them, right,
<v Speaker 3>And so they're like, why are you guys making fun
<v Speaker 3>of us? We're nineteen year old kids, we're twenty year
<v Speaker 3>old kids. How can you do this to us, And
<v Speaker 3>so I got to say this at this point looking back,
<v Speaker 3>I mean, especially with Wake Me Up right, there is
<v Speaker 3>a taint on that song. As much as anybody loves
<v Speaker 3>that song, they might call it a guilty pleasure bug right.
<v Speaker 1>It's an embarrassment to say you really like that song, bog.
<v Speaker 3>But you know what I am here. I mean I
<v Speaker 3>literally had the same thought before we as we moved
<v Speaker 3>away from Tears for Fears and Songs from the Big Chair,
<v Speaker 3>and I'm thinking, Wow, this is a deep, awesome album
<v Speaker 3>and we're moving on to wayam, bubblegum and lollipops right,
<v Speaker 3>make your teeth hurt. I am here to advocate for
<v Speaker 3>the songwriting and the incredible talent that went behind this
<v Speaker 3>album that most considered to be sweet, bubblegum popcorn crap.
<v Speaker 1>I'm spiking the football with you. This is a great
<v Speaker 1>album of the eighties. These are great songs. I don't
<v Speaker 1>care what you say. They are infectious, catchy, wonderful pop songs.
<v Speaker 3>Yep. So I think that brings us to song number one,
<v Speaker 3>right out of the gate. Thank you whoever decided the
<v Speaker 3>song order of this album. This song came from a
<v Speaker 3>mistake on a note from Andrew Ridge Ridgeley to his mom,
<v Speaker 3>wake me up before you go go?
<v Speaker 5>Wake me up?
<v Speaker 4>Fine, fine, See this is a fantastic pop song.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so tell us the story about the mistaken note.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So during fantastic they still weren't making any money
<v Speaker 1>because of that terrible record deal you talked about. So
<v Speaker 1>they're still living at their parents' house. Andrew originally was there.
<v Speaker 1>He had to get up for some pr thing. He
<v Speaker 1>left a note for his mom taped to his door
<v Speaker 1>that said, wake me up up before you go. And
<v Speaker 1>then he realized, oh shoot, I made a mistake. I
<v Speaker 1>put up up in there twice, and so as a
<v Speaker 1>joke to his mom, he finished it saying go go.
<v Speaker 1>So the note said wake me up up before you
<v Speaker 1>go go. George saw the note, thought it was funny,
<v Speaker 1>took that, ran with it and created this wonderful number
<v Speaker 1>one pop smash in nineteen eighty four degree.
<v Speaker 5>Sized out of My Way.
<v Speaker 3>This sound sound, Jason, you make the sunshine brighter than
<v Speaker 3>Doris Day.
<v Speaker 1>Doris Day we talked about in our five Minutes of
<v Speaker 1>fire yeap. So the interesting thing about this song, this
<v Speaker 1>song was never demoed. George Michael had this song in
<v Speaker 1>his head and communicated it to the musicians and they
<v Speaker 1>just pieced it together from his brain directly to the album.
<v Speaker 1>That's amazing.
<v Speaker 3>It is fantastic. He has such an incredible voice and
<v Speaker 3>in such an incredible ability with music that he can
<v Speaker 3>convey the right notes so that anybody who knows what
<v Speaker 3>they're doing with an instrument should be able to do
<v Speaker 3>what he's doing.
<v Speaker 1>It's an amazing ability that he has. The talent as
<v Speaker 1>a musician is incredible. Okay, At the beginning of the
<v Speaker 1>song they say the word jitterbug a couple of times. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>jitterbug is a dance craze from the nineteen thirties. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>do you know how to do the jitterbug?
<v Speaker 3>I do not. I don't either.
<v Speaker 1>But he wanted to make a very energetic pop record
<v Speaker 1>that was like from the fifties or sixties.
<v Speaker 3>This is an upbeat pop song at the time that
<v Speaker 3>punk rock was in its heyday. I mean, if we
<v Speaker 3>think about the British music scene, punk rock was making
<v Speaker 3>a big splash and what they did in reaction to
<v Speaker 3>that was to go, hey, we're gonna do something that's
<v Speaker 3>a throwback to fifties style music. Mentioning dance styles from
<v Speaker 3>the thirties, right and Doris Day and Sunshine and lollipops.
<v Speaker 1>I watched some reaction videos to people watching this for
<v Speaker 1>the first time, and they were smiling and laughing and
<v Speaker 1>toe tapping. It's an infectious It's just fun. This song
<v Speaker 1>was released in May of nineteen eighty four, hits number
<v Speaker 1>one November of nineteen eighty four. We say that one
<v Speaker 1>more time. Let me get ready for this number one hit.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna say that a few more times on this album. Okay, yes,
<v Speaker 1>real quick trivia question for you. What song blocked Purple
<v Speaker 1>Rain from becoming a number one hit.
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna go with wake Me Up before You Go Go.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, before you Go Go.
<v Speaker 3>I know that. When we talked about that, I laughed
<v Speaker 3>and shook my head at that. I would like to
<v Speaker 3>apologize public apology. This song has lasting power. People are
<v Speaker 3>still listening to it today.
<v Speaker 1>I played it for my daughter last night.
<v Speaker 3>She do every word.
<v Speaker 1>She's fifteen. Okay, here's the other thing. D If I
<v Speaker 1>told you, let's make a list of ten songs that
<v Speaker 1>are the most Eighties. I'm not saying the best the
<v Speaker 1>most eighties songs. If you put this song on there.
<v Speaker 1>I got no problem with it.
<v Speaker 3>Nobody's gonna argue with it.
<v Speaker 1>Put Careless Whisper on that list, I got no problem
<v Speaker 1>with it.
<v Speaker 3>Nope.
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about the video for a second.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>This video was directed by our man Andy Moorehan cool.
<v Speaker 1>You've got black lights, you've got a crowd. You've got
<v Speaker 1>to choose live t shirts. You've got the goofy yellow
<v Speaker 1>fingerless gloves and the pink shirts and weird hats, and
<v Speaker 1>they've got they're dancing, they've got horns and they are
<v Speaker 1>having a blast.
<v Speaker 3>If you watch this video and you're not happier at
<v Speaker 3>the end than you were at the beginning, you need
<v Speaker 3>to go see somebody.
<v Speaker 1>That's right. That's right, those horns and his boy in
<v Speaker 1>that chorus, I defy you not to smile and tap
<v Speaker 1>your toe.
<v Speaker 3>It's truly infectious. And shall I shall not scoff again?
<v Speaker 1>You know, here's the other interesting thing. George Michael had
<v Speaker 1>since turned his back on this song. Of course, he
<v Speaker 1>called it naff and stupid. He would do that with
<v Speaker 1>lots of songs. He did that with Careless Whisper, he
<v Speaker 1>did that with I Want Your Sex. It's like he
<v Speaker 1>as soon as they were out of his brain, he
<v Speaker 1>outgrew them.
<v Speaker 3>It was a perfectionist type of reaction to much of
<v Speaker 3>what he did, because once it's down and it's permanently placed,
<v Speaker 3>a perfectionist will still pick apart whatever they've done, and
<v Speaker 3>then they have to that is their reason for hating
<v Speaker 3>it later on. But his perfectionism is what made all
<v Speaker 3>of the beautiful music that came.
<v Speaker 1>It's true, all right, Let's move on to the next
<v Speaker 1>number one single on the album. This song is called
<v Speaker 1>Everything She Wants.
<v Speaker 3>So listening to the little opening part of this song
<v Speaker 3>beat and the synthesizer, I want you to think about
<v Speaker 3>when you had a cassio keyboard in the mid eighties, right, right,
<v Speaker 3>because everybody did, right and they all had those kind
<v Speaker 3>of pre programmed beats and pre programmed songs. Well, George
<v Speaker 3>Michael had one too. Okay, I don't know if it's
<v Speaker 3>a cassio, but he had a little synthesizer with a
<v Speaker 3>pre programmed beat, and he said that this is the
<v Speaker 3>one song that he had started with the backing track first.
<v Speaker 3>Normally he would write the melody first and then figure
<v Speaker 3>out the rhythm later. This is an AI song. This
<v Speaker 3>is a computer generated beat that he used and then
<v Speaker 3>developed the rest of the song afterwards. And what's great
<v Speaker 3>is you want to talk about some meaningful lyrics. This
<v Speaker 3>isn't hippy dippy love. Oh yeah, this is a guy
<v Speaker 3>who they warned him everything she wants is everything she sees.
<v Speaker 3>But still he falls in love, he gets married, and
<v Speaker 3>sure enough, everything she wants is everything she needs. And
<v Speaker 3>that's all I'm spending all of my money. Oh and
<v Speaker 3>now we're having a baby. How am I supposed to
<v Speaker 3>support a baby? Should I act like I'm happy?
<v Speaker 1>This is heartbreaking?
<v Speaker 5>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Every time I would watch this video on MTV, I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't even think he loves her, and he's having
<v Speaker 1>a baby, and his back is going to break if
<v Speaker 1>she asked him to do one more thing.
<v Speaker 6>It's a.
<v Speaker 1>Bummer of a deal. And guys married, Oh I don't
<v Speaker 1>love this girl. Oh we're having a baby?
<v Speaker 3>Great?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just what I needed.
<v Speaker 3>It's not an uncommon theme. Now, it's not certainly something
<v Speaker 3>that George ever actually went through, but it is it
<v Speaker 3>is certainly an interesting plot line to go with.
<v Speaker 1>Especially from a twenty one, twenty two year old.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, let's think about that, George Michael was born in
<v Speaker 3>nineteen sixty three. That means when he was writing this song,
<v Speaker 3>he was at most twenty years old.
<v Speaker 1>That's true. That's true. This song was written and produced
<v Speaker 1>by George Michael. He said when he finished this song,
<v Speaker 1>even though it was credited as Wham, he did everything.
<v Speaker 1>That's when he realized, think I can pull this off
<v Speaker 1>by myself.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this is their sophomore album. They had fantastic, They
<v Speaker 3>had this, and then they have one more album that
<v Speaker 3>they are already calling the final album number three. They
<v Speaker 3>already knew that it was over, that this was a
<v Speaker 3>temporary project. This was not something that was supposed to
<v Speaker 3>grow old. And originally said Wham would never be middle aged.
<v Speaker 1>You know, and originally is incredibly gracious throughout this entire day.
<v Speaker 1>We'll talk about more his role and how that changed
<v Speaker 1>over the years, you know. I mean, he was the leader.
<v Speaker 1>He was the leader that George aspired to. And then
<v Speaker 1>they switched positions and George kept going, yeah, like a rocket. Well,
<v Speaker 1>here's the thing.
<v Speaker 3>Andrew Ridgely wanted to be a rock star and George
<v Speaker 3>Michael wanted to be a musician, right both at check
<v Speaker 3>check right, absolutely, and so Ridgely was the guy who
<v Speaker 3>was making the tabloids of all of the sexcapades that
<v Speaker 3>he would get involved in, which is exactly.
<v Speaker 1>What he were.
<v Speaker 3>Andy, that exactly that's what he wanted. He wanted that
<v Speaker 3>rock star lifestyle. I genuinely don't think he had the
<v Speaker 3>aspiration to do more with his music career. Like I
<v Speaker 3>felt sorry for him initially, I was thinking, you know,
<v Speaker 3>poor guy. He mentors George Michael, he brings him up,
<v Speaker 3>he makes him a memory, you know, talks him into
<v Speaker 3>forming this band, all this stuff, and then George Michael
<v Speaker 3>just kind of leaves him behind. But I mean I
<v Speaker 3>had to look it up. Andrew Ridgeley's net worth is
<v Speaker 3>forty million dollars. He's not suffering.
<v Speaker 4>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>And after this he did race cars. Yeah yeah, I
<v Speaker 3>mean he did whatever he wanted. He married the girl
<v Speaker 3>from Banana Rama, the hottest girl in Banana whoever he wanted.
<v Speaker 3>If you will, that's it.
<v Speaker 7>That's it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, you know, you're right. And here's the other thing.
<v Speaker 1>Individually strikes me as being a much happier individual despite
<v Speaker 1>the end of his success, basically in nineteen eighty six, the.
<v Speaker 3>End of his fame, that's really what it was, Just
<v Speaker 3>the end of his same, but that again, he wanted
<v Speaker 3>that fame for the time that he was young, and
<v Speaker 3>then he he knew he wanted to move on to
<v Speaker 3>other things. He wanted to have diverse interests, and it
<v Speaker 3>goes to his self confidence in who he was. I'm
<v Speaker 3>going to do what I want to do, and I
<v Speaker 3>did this rock star thing, and now I'm going to
<v Speaker 3>do this race car thing, and now I'm going to
<v Speaker 3>be this professional cyclist.
<v Speaker 1>And he seems to me very well adjusted, very comfortable
<v Speaker 1>in being worth forty million dollars. George always seemed to
<v Speaker 1>struggle with happiness.
<v Speaker 3>I think absolutely absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>So I will tell you this. Everything She Wants was
<v Speaker 1>George Michael's favorite Wham song. This is one of the
<v Speaker 1>only songs that he would play during the Faith years.
<v Speaker 1>He shied away from most of his Wham stuff. And
<v Speaker 1>he was also known, you know, like you said, he
<v Speaker 1>was a perfectionist, so he would hang around for the
<v Speaker 1>editing of the videos. In this case, he helped Andy
<v Speaker 1>Morehan edit this particular video.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so tell me about this video.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so it's black and white. Got some concert footage
<v Speaker 1>of where you've got Georgia's mug right there, big, right
<v Speaker 1>there in screen.
<v Speaker 3>That's whatever eighteen year old, eighteen year old girl wanted
<v Speaker 3>to see at that point.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and it's a whole lot less happy than Wake
<v Speaker 1>me Up before you go.
<v Speaker 3>It is not a happy subject at all.
<v Speaker 1>I will tell you this. This song hit number one
<v Speaker 1>May twenty fifth, nineteen eighty five. Would you like to
<v Speaker 1>hear the top seven that week?
<v Speaker 3>You know I would?
<v Speaker 1>Okay, because it's Lota with Shirley stuff. Okay, yeah, number
<v Speaker 1>seven that week, May twenty fifth, nineteen eighty five, Number seven,
<v Speaker 1>one night in Bangkok.
<v Speaker 3>Go check out our Patreon page. Boys and girls, ladies
<v Speaker 3>and gentlemen. If you want to join our Patreon, you
<v Speaker 3>can go to Patreon on dot com. Backslash Surely podcast
<v Speaker 3>and we cover one hit wonders exclusively for our Patreon
<v Speaker 3>members a little as five bucks a month if you
<v Speaker 3>don't like what we've got, and you get access to
<v Speaker 3>all of the episodes. If you don't like it, we'll
<v Speaker 3>give you your money back and happy to do so.
<v Speaker 1>We've got some great episodes over there, including the one
<v Speaker 1>on one nine in Bangkok, YEP number six Crazy for
<v Speaker 1>You by Madonna.
<v Speaker 3>Madonna keeps coming up. I feel like we need to
<v Speaker 3>cover her you.
<v Speaker 1>Need to cover at some point. Number five Smooth Operator
<v Speaker 1>by Shad a shot a number four axel.
<v Speaker 3>F Okay, yeah, we just covered that one in our
<v Speaker 3>Beverly Hills Cops soundtrack. Yep.
<v Speaker 1>Number three Everybody Wants to Rule the World covered that
<v Speaker 1>last week, yeah right. Number two Don't You Forget About
<v Speaker 1>Me from the Breakfast Club.
<v Speaker 3>That was another Patreon episode. Great episode, yep.
<v Speaker 1>And then number one Everything she Wants. Did you know
<v Speaker 1>see this stat blew me away? When this song hit
<v Speaker 1>number one, it became the first album to have three
<v Speaker 1>number one singles since the Begis did it.
<v Speaker 3>That's impressive.
<v Speaker 1>Faith I think had four.
<v Speaker 3>Number one album. Did the Beaches get it with?
<v Speaker 1>I think they got it with Saturday Night Fever.
<v Speaker 3>Go back and check out that episode as well as
<v Speaker 3>we covered that soundtrack versus the Dirty Dancing soundtrack after
<v Speaker 3>doing that movie Versus The Dirty Dancing.
<v Speaker 1>Movie some of my favorite episodes.
<v Speaker 3>Oh they're great.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, we've done with Everything she Wants.
<v Speaker 3>Time to move on to song number three. The song
<v Speaker 3>is called Heartbeat, and we talked about this album being
<v Speaker 3>influenced by the sixties. This beat is straight out of
<v Speaker 3>Leader at the Pack by the shanger loss. Oh okay, Now,
<v Speaker 3>I texted you when I heard this, because this is
<v Speaker 3>my first time going through this album since I was
<v Speaker 3>you know, twelve, Yeah, no, try it eight okay yeah.
<v Speaker 3>But the melody a little riff at the beginning. It
<v Speaker 3>sounds like My Hometown by Bruce Springsteen, which of course
<v Speaker 3>just came out the year before were.
<v Speaker 1>I can hear that. I think you're right, yeah, interesting.
<v Speaker 3>You got the sixty four shangri law you know three
<v Speaker 3>girl music group beat going with that melody. But it's
<v Speaker 3>still a catchy little tune.
<v Speaker 1>I think this could have been a successful single. This
<v Speaker 1>is one that if they chose to release it with
<v Speaker 1>the wham mania going on at the time, I have
<v Speaker 1>no doubt this could have been a great single, great song,
<v Speaker 1>successful charting single.
<v Speaker 3>So this song, He's sitting at the end of summer vacation,
<v Speaker 3>watching his friends go by here in the school bell rings,
<v Speaker 3>thinking about the happy little kisses he shared with some
<v Speaker 3>girl until he sees another girl and he's then stuck like,
<v Speaker 3>oh my gosh, I have this desire for her, but
<v Speaker 3>I have this obligation to my or to my current
<v Speaker 3>girl friend, which, of course that topic comes up a
<v Speaker 3>little bit later on with Caroless Whisper, he says, how
<v Speaker 3>could I help but admire her beauty? Standing on the
<v Speaker 3>line between desire and duty, he.
<v Speaker 1>Had a restless heart. Yeah, you're a long term guy
<v Speaker 1>with anybody kind of known for cruising, just as Brookshields.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, that's right. Okay, I got a great story
<v Speaker 1>for you. Okay, I'm gonna throw it in here. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So this album was recorded at Studio Maraval in the
<v Speaker 1>south of France, like June and July of nineteen eighty four. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>life must be hard, right, I know, right, France summer
<v Speaker 1>feel terrible for them. That actually is one of the
<v Speaker 1>studios where Pink Floyd put the finishing touches.
<v Speaker 3>On the wall. Yep.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. They come into the recording studio one day and
<v Speaker 1>there's a message for them. They got a phone call
<v Speaker 1>from Sir Elton John. He wants to invite them to
<v Speaker 1>a bit of lunch. Andrew originally is like, that's when
<v Speaker 1>we knew we're big time, you know. He talked about
<v Speaker 1>how when they would hang out in George's room when
<v Speaker 1>they were kids and talk about music and look at
<v Speaker 1>albums and stuff. Good by Yellow Brick road. It was
<v Speaker 1>one of their favorites, absolutely, and so they got to
<v Speaker 1>hang out with Elton John and they were on his
<v Speaker 1>boat and having lunch. One are the funny things that
<v Speaker 1>they did. Of course they're twenty or twenty one, whatever
<v Speaker 1>they are. They cruised by a boat where Joan Collins
<v Speaker 1>was supposed to be. That was her boat, and so
<v Speaker 1>George yelled at the boat, hey, Joan, show us your nickers.
<v Speaker 1>So south of France for a couple of twenty year
<v Speaker 1>olds who are on a pole and.
<v Speaker 3>With Elton John. Yeah, Elton John actually was one of
<v Speaker 3>the one of the first big recording artists that came
<v Speaker 3>forward and said, George Michael is an incredibly talented songwriter.
<v Speaker 3>And I mean he's saying that from the songs off
<v Speaker 3>of Make It Big. They're talking about faith, he's talking
<v Speaker 3>about make it Big and fantastic, and he says, this
<v Speaker 3>is a guy who's truly gifted, and I don't see
<v Speaker 3>that very often anymore. And just to kind of add
<v Speaker 3>credit to what Elton's saying, he won the award that
<v Speaker 3>year for Best New Songwriter. That was the thing that
<v Speaker 3>actually the award that actually made George Michael wheep on
<v Speaker 3>stage because he was presented with the award by Elton John.
<v Speaker 3>He's surrounded by all of his heroes, songwriting heroes, and
<v Speaker 3>he felt like with this album, they were in teen
<v Speaker 3>magazines right there with their shirts off and tan, and
<v Speaker 3>they have the screaming girls and it's that rock star
<v Speaker 3>side of things. And he understood that recognition and probably
<v Speaker 3>didn't even like it that much. But once he was
<v Speaker 3>recognized for his songwriting abilities, that's what really made him
<v Speaker 3>feel like he was worth something.
<v Speaker 1>So, just to recap, Elton John says, they're awesome. George's
<v Speaker 1>dad says, you suck until later, and until later he
<v Speaker 1>does come around. He does, Let's give him credit. Where
<v Speaker 1>it's Dune okay.
<v Speaker 8>Next all on the album's called Like a Baby.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. So this is the song where you have the
<v Speaker 3>action scene in the movie and everybody's chasing each other
<v Speaker 3>and there's gunfire and then they have to get onto
<v Speaker 3>the elevator and all of a sudden, it's just waiting
<v Speaker 3>awkwardly for a minute and a half.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I literally I was like, is this an instrumental? What
<v Speaker 3>am I? Is this music? What am I listening to here?
<v Speaker 3>This is easy smooth jazz from a different genre of
<v Speaker 3>music than I thought I was listening to.
<v Speaker 1>This belongs on Cinemax after dark.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe that's time.
<v Speaker 1>I'm telling you. It's soft, it's smooth, it's jazzy, but
<v Speaker 1>it does nothing for me.
<v Speaker 3>Uh yeah, And then I mean it's a full minute
<v Speaker 3>and forty seconds into the song, and then all of
<v Speaker 3>a sudden, George starts singing, oh, oh, guess it's not
<v Speaker 3>a musical right. And to be honest, as far as
<v Speaker 3>the songwriting goes for this album, this is bottom of
<v Speaker 3>my list. This is the low low points, kind of
<v Speaker 3>plain vanilla love song. Not terribly interesting stuff to me.
<v Speaker 3>So we're in agreement this. If there is a skipper
<v Speaker 3>on the album, this one's this is it. Okay, HiT's
<v Speaker 3>stop on your tape player, kick it out.
<v Speaker 1>Flip it over first side two and we start off
<v Speaker 1>with freedom.
<v Speaker 3>If you told me this was a remake of a
<v Speaker 3>Supreme song from the sixties, I would say, yeah, I
<v Speaker 3>can see that.
<v Speaker 1>I can see that.
<v Speaker 3>It is completely by that playbook. This is Motown all
<v Speaker 3>over the place, except we got a white, blonde British guy.
<v Speaker 1>Singing yeah, yeah, this is a great pop song.
<v Speaker 3>Oh it's excellent. This is one of the best on
<v Speaker 3>the album.
<v Speaker 1>The bridge is great, the chorus is great. It's sing
<v Speaker 1>along another toe tapper. This is Wham encapsulated in three minutes.
<v Speaker 3>So this song was released on October first, nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 3>four in the.
<v Speaker 1>UK in the UK, released in August of eighty five
<v Speaker 1>in the US.
<v Speaker 3>Did it make it to number one?
<v Speaker 1>It made it to number three? What made it to
<v Speaker 1>number three?
<v Speaker 3>I know you're gonna tell me the two that kept
<v Speaker 3>it out of the one number one spot.
<v Speaker 1>Let's do the top five, Okay, So this is September
<v Speaker 1>twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, where it peaks out at
<v Speaker 1>number three. Number five Oshila by Ready for the World.
<v Speaker 3>That is one that I have suggested. Four our one
<v Speaker 3>hit Wonder episodisodes on Patreon.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, number four, Don't Forget My Number by Phil Collins.
<v Speaker 1>Great Solins is always going to be out there. We
<v Speaker 1>are covering Phil Collins next summer.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Number three Freedom number two cherished by Cooling the Gang.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, that's not bad. I don't know that it's better
<v Speaker 3>than Freedom, right, it's not bad.
<v Speaker 1>Number one Money for Nothing by Dire Straits.
<v Speaker 3>Oh that was a winner.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you're not knocking that one out.
<v Speaker 3>No, that's yeah, the beautiful combination of Mark Knopfler and
<v Speaker 3>Sting and a killer guitar.
<v Speaker 1>Riff and a fantastic music video.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all of checks all the boxes. Yep.
<v Speaker 1>So Freedom was written when George was nineteen. After he
<v Speaker 1>was done, he was thrilled. He said, I cannot believe
<v Speaker 1>I just did that. That was the moment that he
<v Speaker 1>started to take himself seriously as a songwriter.
<v Speaker 3>I heard him talk about his songwriting and he said
<v Speaker 3>that when he does a song, well, it doesn't feel
<v Speaker 3>like he's written the song. It feels like he has
<v Speaker 3>discovered it, like that the song already exists and he's
<v Speaker 3>just found it. It's out there and he's just found it.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, how can you argue with a guy who
<v Speaker 1>every time they put out a single, it's in this
<v Speaker 1>album nothing outside of the top three. Read number ones
<v Speaker 1>and a number three.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Four releases and a little bit of a story.
<v Speaker 3>Later on that year, after these, after this album has
<v Speaker 3>been released, he says to himself, I'm gonna get fourth
<v Speaker 3>number one single in this year, right, and writes another
<v Speaker 3>song and almost makes.
<v Speaker 1>It number two. Despite being one of the greatest Christmas
<v Speaker 1>songs of all time.
<v Speaker 3>Well, it did ultimately become number one in twenty twenty
<v Speaker 3>four years, almost exactly four years after he passes away.
<v Speaker 1>Christmas that's the other Wham song that she knows.
<v Speaker 3>Last Christmas. By the way, ladies and gentlemen's who were talking.
<v Speaker 1>About right, that's right, which he said, they were watching
<v Speaker 1>the football game soccer to you and me. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>Andrews said that George just disappeared for.
<v Speaker 3>Like an hour, said he suddenly sat up, bolt upright
<v Speaker 3>is the words he used, bolts up out of the chair.
<v Speaker 3>I gotta go.
<v Speaker 1>It comes back an hour later, says Andy, you gotta
<v Speaker 1>come listen to this.
<v Speaker 3>He's got a little four track recorder that you put
<v Speaker 3>the regular old Maxwell cassette tape into and it's la
<v Speaker 3>Last Christmas. Incredible, incredible. By the way, before we get
<v Speaker 3>off of Last Christmas, the song that kept it out
<v Speaker 3>of the number one spot, do they.
<v Speaker 1>Know it's Christmas by band Aid.
<v Speaker 3>Or whatever, which George Michael sang on.
<v Speaker 1>And but you know, it drove him freaking insane that
<v Speaker 1>it never got to number one.
<v Speaker 3>He said he had two little voices in his head.
<v Speaker 3>One was very happy that this charitable work that he
<v Speaker 3>had done was doing so well, and the other one
<v Speaker 3>was saying, I don't know if this was a true,
<v Speaker 3>truly charitable concept or if they hoped that maybe the
<v Speaker 3>fact that they added the charity to it might push
<v Speaker 3>it into the number one spot. But all of the
<v Speaker 3>proceeds from last Christmas were donated to tribute.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you really wanted that fourth number one. Luckily Faith
<v Speaker 1>came along a couple of years later and he took
<v Speaker 1>care of that. By the way, speaking of Faith, there
<v Speaker 1>is an organ at the very beginning of the song
<v Speaker 1>of Faith, which we talked about in our Faith episode.
<v Speaker 1>That organ is playing the chorus from Freedom.
<v Speaker 3>Go check out that episode. It's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about the music video for a second. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>we did talk about this at length during our Faith episode,
<v Speaker 1>but it was shot in China, which at the time
<v Speaker 1>that was the first time a Western act had ever
<v Speaker 1>been invited to China to perform, and so there's some
<v Speaker 1>really great shots there at the Great Wall. And I
<v Speaker 1>remember at the time we talked about how the organizers
<v Speaker 1>for this event they went to the Chinese officials and
<v Speaker 1>they said, okay, here's your choices, Queen, and they showed
<v Speaker 1>some like unflattering pictures of Freddie Mercury or you know,
<v Speaker 1>these two wholesome young men right here, and the Chinese
<v Speaker 1>guys are like, we'll take this. People right here, Whan
<v Speaker 1>and so music video. They're all over China, they're doing things.
<v Speaker 1>They're at the Great Wall of China. There's a there's
<v Speaker 1>a great shot of them playing a boombox to like
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of older people and they're playing wake me
<v Speaker 1>Up before you.
<v Speaker 3>Go go so with this song. Not in China, but
<v Speaker 3>in Japan. They did an advertisement. I don't even know
<v Speaker 3>what the advertisement was for, but it was It was
<v Speaker 3>great because I saw a video and it's George Michael
<v Speaker 3>and Andrew Ridgeley and this has to be very close
<v Speaker 3>to right before George passed away. I mean they're both
<v Speaker 3>obviously in their in their fifties Gray and yeaheah, and
<v Speaker 3>they talk about how number when they start off the
<v Speaker 3>video doing a bad moonwalk like Simon Labon did, and
<v Speaker 3>then they changed the words to freedom and it goes
<v Speaker 3>like this.
<v Speaker 2>No, mom, it's that you're slightly porkyky.
<v Speaker 1>That's good. I love it. Number three hits for those
<v Speaker 1>keeping score at home, that's two number ones and a
<v Speaker 1>number three with one more.
<v Speaker 3>To coo yeah, and and a mention of a number
<v Speaker 3>two in there by the Way, not off this album,
<v Speaker 3>but same.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, that's right, Okay, moving on to the next song.
<v Speaker 3>Let's do it.
<v Speaker 1>The next song is called if you Were There?
<v Speaker 6>Okay, what do you think?
<v Speaker 7>Uh?
<v Speaker 3>Kind of sounds like the beginning of an eighties sitcom.
<v Speaker 1>When called if you Were There?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>This is a cover. Yeah, this is a cover from
<v Speaker 1>the nineteen seventy th song by the Eisley Brothers. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>that's why it sounds slightly discoy.
<v Speaker 3>I guess it sounds very eighties to me, which I
<v Speaker 3>don't think that most of the songs, I mean, other
<v Speaker 3>than they defined the eighties at the time that this
<v Speaker 3>album came out, Freedom, Wake Me Up, Before You Go Go,
<v Speaker 3>Everything She Wants, all of those songs they set the standard.
<v Speaker 3>This one, to me imitates the standard, and I don't
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's it's okay. It sounds like a filler
<v Speaker 3>song to me.
<v Speaker 1>I told you that of the songs on this album,
<v Speaker 1>they either transcend time and space or they're just kind
<v Speaker 1>of Yeah, this is one of those songs.
<v Speaker 3>I'm just like, eh, yeah, I'm moving on pretty movie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, next up, song called credit Card Baby.
<v Speaker 3>Great, we're back to the motown. I'm happy you know
<v Speaker 3>this is This isn't the Spreams. This is the Four Tops, right,
<v Speaker 3>this is sugar Pie, Honey Bunch, whatever you like. I
<v Speaker 3>can't help myself. This is and I Again they deliver
<v Speaker 3>when they throw back to that sixty style.
<v Speaker 1>This is the happy version of everything she wants. He
<v Speaker 1>doesn't trust women, clearly because all they want him for
<v Speaker 1>is his money. Yes, okay, I'm gonna play you a
<v Speaker 1>song that I think this sounds exactly alike.
<v Speaker 7>Okay, that's doing it all for my baby.
<v Speaker 3>Huey Lewis knew it as soon as I heard it.
<v Speaker 3>But again, I mean they are both imitating the style
<v Speaker 3>of the Four Tops from nineteen sixty five or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>but do whatever you want to call it is it's great.
<v Speaker 3>I love it.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I got this story behind this song.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, Yeah, I'm excited.
<v Speaker 1>So here you go. Who is this song about? Right?
<v Speaker 1>Who is the critic?
<v Speaker 3>Herd baby?
<v Speaker 1>So basically, George had three girlfriends in his entire life,
<v Speaker 1>like serious girlfriends, right, Okay, he had a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>women he was with whatever a bunch of guys too,
<v Speaker 1>but three serious girlfriends. Okay, one is Brookshields. Okay, one
<v Speaker 1>is Kathy Young. She's the girl that he wrote explore
<v Speaker 1>monogamy on her back for the right Yeah, I watch
<v Speaker 1>your sex video, right, Japanese girl right, smoking yeah, smoking on.
<v Speaker 1>And this other girl named Pat Fernandez. Most people think
<v Speaker 1>this song is about Pat Fernandez.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, she looks like the middle sister on the.
<v Speaker 1>Cause that's exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, it misplayed,
<v Speaker 1>so yeah, yep, this from a guy who could bed
<v Speaker 1>literally anyone in the world in nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 3>But like I said, I don't know why you're limiting
<v Speaker 3>it to women.
<v Speaker 1>Once again, you're a correct sir. Yeah, Okay, fun song,
<v Speaker 1>not great?
<v Speaker 3>Oh I like it?
<v Speaker 1>You like it?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? This is one of this is a This is
<v Speaker 3>a top half of the album for me. Okay, sure
<v Speaker 3>for sure.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well that's fair enough. Let's get to the big hitter.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, last song on the album before it get started.
<v Speaker 3>On the song, do you know who Joshua Reddick is? No,
<v Speaker 3>he's a baseball player, okay, played. I think he started
<v Speaker 3>with the Boston Redtox. Would kind of go in and
<v Speaker 3>out of the majors and minors, never really kind of
<v Speaker 3>found himself until twenty thirteen. He's by this time with
<v Speaker 3>the Oakland A's, he's not doing real hot, and then
<v Speaker 3>one game August of twenty thirteen, he hits three home
<v Speaker 3>runs in one game, and suddenly his career takes off,
<v Speaker 3>like he becomes unstoppable, and by February of the next year,
<v Speaker 3>twenty fourteen, he's signed a multi million dollar contract to
<v Speaker 3>two million in something with the Oakland A's and three
<v Speaker 3>months later they say, Hey, you are batting like a phenom.
<v Speaker 3>What would you like your coming up to bat? Intro?
<v Speaker 3>Kick some butt song to right, and he picks song
<v Speaker 3>number eight off of Make It Big song we like
<v Speaker 3>to call careless whisper. Can you imagine walking up to
<v Speaker 3>the plate with the solo player.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, if you believe it's because of a song, are
<v Speaker 1>you're breathing out your eyelids? Doesn't matter?
<v Speaker 3>Well, all I can say is the guy's career skyrocketed
<v Speaker 3>after that, Like it was. It was a four million dollar,
<v Speaker 3>then a six million dollar next year, and then like
<v Speaker 3>a fifty million dollars for the next four years. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>he he really took off and I would say that
<v Speaker 3>it's in no small part due to the magic of
<v Speaker 3>this song.
<v Speaker 1>This is a eighties masterpiece.
<v Speaker 3>So I gave a big, long story when we covered
<v Speaker 3>Faith back in our very first season. I gave a big,
<v Speaker 3>long story about the story behind the song that I
<v Speaker 3>had actually heard George Michael talk about in an interview,
<v Speaker 3>and he had he had a girl that he fell
<v Speaker 3>in love with at the skating rink when he would
<v Speaker 3>chaperone his older sister at the skating rink. There's a
<v Speaker 3>green Jane, Yes, that he fell in love with and
<v Speaker 3>he'd then you know, they go on their separate ways.
<v Speaker 3>Nothing ever happens with that romance. But then he starts
<v Speaker 3>dating a girl named Helen, and then happens. Stance be
<v Speaker 3>what it is. He comes across Jane again and suddenly
<v Speaker 3>Jane is infatuated with him, and now it's this awkward
<v Speaker 3>situation where he's with Helen, but he's got all of
<v Speaker 3>those old feelings about Jane. Now researching this album again
<v Speaker 3>for this episode, what I understand is that's a bunch
<v Speaker 3>of horses, which is tragic because it's a great story.
<v Speaker 1>It is a great story.
<v Speaker 3>But here is the true part of the story. Here
<v Speaker 3>is the part of the story that has remained consistent throughout.
<v Speaker 3>At seventeen years old, the young yet to be named
<v Speaker 3>George Michael, George Michael gets on a bus public transit,
<v Speaker 3>walks onto the bus, and as he is handing his
<v Speaker 3>ticket or money to the bus driver, this melody goes
<v Speaker 3>into his head and that night he goes and finds
<v Speaker 3>a friend who plays the saxophone, records him playing the saxophone,
<v Speaker 3>and it all develops this song.
<v Speaker 1>The original demo for this was created in nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>one in the originally's home, but it never it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>really ever fit any album until Make a Big comes along.
<v Speaker 3>When George and Andrew first got together as a band,
<v Speaker 3>they had a demo tape which was essentially this completed song,
<v Speaker 3>a half song and like the first two chords of
<v Speaker 3>another song that they were thinking about right, And they
<v Speaker 3>would go from record company to record company saying listen
<v Speaker 3>to our demo, listen to our demo, and every time
<v Speaker 3>they were thrown out. But guess what, every single one
<v Speaker 3>of those record companies heard careless whisper and said, no thanks,
<v Speaker 3>come back when you can write a hit.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, it's so incredible, right, it's the biggest
<v Speaker 1>selling single of nineteen eighty five, and they had no clue.
<v Speaker 1>But you can actually see the evolution of the song.
<v Speaker 3>But then they don't put it on Fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Andrew originally said just didn't feel right for the tone
<v Speaker 1>of the album.
<v Speaker 3>But it does feel right for the tone of this album.
<v Speaker 1>So their manager says, hey, I got a great idea.
<v Speaker 1>Why didn't you go to the studio Muscle Shoals in
<v Speaker 1>Alabama where Aretha Franklin recorded Respect.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they're working with Jerry Wexler, who did Aretha Franklin's Respect,
<v Speaker 3>Who did Ray Charles songs?
<v Speaker 1>I mean he was He's a legend.
<v Speaker 3>He's a legend. George flies from the UK down to
<v Speaker 3>Alabama to play with the Swampers. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>He said that when he was recording the song, Jerry
<v Speaker 1>Wexser would be like, all right, George, whenever you're ready.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, that's the microphone that Rea Franklin used
<v Speaker 1>to sing respect into. So it was all this pressure. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and he said that everybody there was the best of
<v Speaker 1>the best, but after listening to it didn't feel like
<v Speaker 1>it had any kind of soul.
<v Speaker 3>Let's listen to that version here. He's right, it's land.
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't have the magic.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. So when he got back to the UK with
<v Speaker 3>the tape, Andrew's like excited. You know, I would be
<v Speaker 3>excited if my buddy had just flown across the country,
<v Speaker 3>across the world to work with the best musicians in
<v Speaker 3>the business, the best producer in the business, in this
<v Speaker 3>iconic studio. And he says, how is it? How did
<v Speaker 3>it go? What does it sound like? And George just says,
<v Speaker 3>tell me what you think and just puts the.
<v Speaker 5>Tape in again, guilty to pretend, and they.
<v Speaker 3>Both listened to it, and Andrew says, I feel like
<v Speaker 3>they took all of the edge off. Yeah, and George said,
<v Speaker 3>I feel exactly the same way. Now at this point,
<v Speaker 3>as this young and yet to be super famous guy,
<v Speaker 3>do you go with Jerry Wexler and the Swampers or
<v Speaker 3>do you put your foot down and say let's rerecord
<v Speaker 3>it my way?
<v Speaker 1>He had the gumption to say, this is not right,
<v Speaker 1>this is not what I want. Thank you, Jerry Wexler.
<v Speaker 1>I'll do it myself.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So he goes back into the studio and he brings
<v Speaker 1>in ten different saxophone players and fires ten saxophone players.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. We talked in our Faith episode about how, in
<v Speaker 3>any normal situation, you take a session musician who knows
<v Speaker 3>what he's doing, and this is a thing where he
<v Speaker 3>arrives at eleven and is done by one o'clock. Right. No,
<v Speaker 3>he brings that guy in and he plays all afternoon
<v Speaker 3>and George says, that's not it, that's not it. Fire
<v Speaker 3>that guy, bringing the next guy, and then they do
<v Speaker 3>it nine more times, and then finally, finally, and this
<v Speaker 3>is again serendipity. Yep, they bring in Steve Gregory. Steve Gregory,
<v Speaker 3>phenomenal saxophonist, knows his craft. But you have this reef
<v Speaker 3>little moment where luck shines and George, who's the one
<v Speaker 3>who's nixed every single sax solo they've done so far,
<v Speaker 3>leaves the studio and Steve says, it's a little tough
<v Speaker 3>to get all these notes in this short span here.
<v Speaker 3>What if I lower the key that this is in
<v Speaker 3>and play it slower and then you speed it up
<v Speaker 3>to match the right pitch and the right tempo. That's
<v Speaker 3>exactly what they do. They do it before George gets
<v Speaker 3>back and they have it recorded, and when he walks
<v Speaker 3>in the door, and they play it for him and
<v Speaker 3>he says, that's it. That's the sound that I will play,
<v Speaker 3>and it's this. It's the blast. It's the blast that
<v Speaker 3>you get in some of those notes that's missing from
<v Speaker 3>that muscle Shoals version. That makes this sax solo in
<v Speaker 3>the top echelon of sax solos as far as songs.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, Baker Street level.
<v Speaker 1>It's magical.
<v Speaker 3>It's magical.
<v Speaker 1>The other part that we kind of bypassed. Andrew gets
<v Speaker 1>writer credit on.
<v Speaker 3>This they work together on when they were seventeen.
<v Speaker 1>Well, a lot of people have said this was George's
<v Speaker 1>sort of last gift to Andrew, splitting the proceeds, splitting
<v Speaker 1>the writing of the song so that he could get
<v Speaker 1>a big payday. Andrew is adamant. Listen, I wrote some
<v Speaker 1>of the chords in this song, brought it to yog
<v Speaker 1>and he said, those chords go perfectly with this sex
<v Speaker 1>solo I got in my head. So it really was
<v Speaker 1>written by the two of them. In fact, there's a
<v Speaker 1>part in the song at the end where it goes
<v Speaker 1>next level. It's the part when he says, tonight the
<v Speaker 1>music seems so loud. I wish that we could lose
<v Speaker 1>this crowd, and he's really belting it out with passion,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the please stay bagging part of it. Next level.
<v Speaker 3>He brings the emotion to those lyrics, probably better than
<v Speaker 3>any other song that he's done.
<v Speaker 1>In Let's talk about the music video for a second. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So originally this was shot in Miami Beach. I've got
<v Speaker 1>a picture of them at the hotel, the Holiday Inn
<v Speaker 1>in Miami the holidays where they stayed while they failed
<v Speaker 1>the video for this.
<v Speaker 3>George walking around in a towel.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah it was, that's exactly right. But shot in Miami.
<v Speaker 1>He did not like the way his hair looked. I think,
<v Speaker 1>I'll tell you this. So his hair is dark. It's
<v Speaker 1>doesn't have that bleach blonde look in this.
<v Speaker 3>It's dark.
<v Speaker 1>So he calls his sister in London who's a hairstylist.
<v Speaker 1>They fly her out to Miami at the cost of
<v Speaker 1>ten thousand pounds so she can come and cut and
<v Speaker 1>fix and style his hair. And that's why when you
<v Speaker 1>watch the music video, there's kind of two pieces that
<v Speaker 1>you have the Miami footage and you have the when
<v Speaker 1>he's in the sort of the theater with the chains
<v Speaker 1>hanging from the ceiling. His hair is blonde in those shots. So,
<v Speaker 1>and that's the reason why.
<v Speaker 3>The director of the video is a guy named Duncan Gibbons.
<v Speaker 3>He was working for a company called John Roseman Productions. Well,
<v Speaker 3>John Roseman had something to say about the making of
<v Speaker 3>the video. He called it a disaster, right. Part of
<v Speaker 3>that because George was being so prima donna about his hair, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and then part of it just because it was just dumb.
<v Speaker 3>It didn't make any sense with what was going on
<v Speaker 3>lyrically in the song. And so that's why you have
<v Speaker 3>that second half that is shot by Morhan.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, definitely. I did see somewhere where somebody said that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, he went through all this trouble to make
<v Speaker 1>his hair look good and all it ended up doing
<v Speaker 1>was looking like Princess Diana.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, I don't know if we mentioned it,
<v Speaker 3>but Morehan is the guy who also directed I Want
<v Speaker 3>Your Sex, Faith and Father Figure.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, this song hits number one February sixteenth,
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 3>That is three for those of you who are keeping track,
<v Speaker 3>boys and girls, three number one hits, four to three
<v Speaker 3>hits and one extra for the year that still got
<v Speaker 3>to know him too. That's right. So when the single
<v Speaker 3>was released, George Michael dedicated the song to his parents.
<v Speaker 3>Now we talked about how his father told him he
<v Speaker 3>couldn't sing, expected him to go be a doctor or
<v Speaker 3>an accountant or help out with the restaurant, right, did
<v Speaker 3>not expect him to make it. But at some point
<v Speaker 3>when they are big with this tour, he goes to
<v Speaker 3>see him in concert and sees an arena full of
<v Speaker 3>people screaming and crying and singing along with his son,
<v Speaker 3>and he says, I wept like a baby. I did
<v Speaker 3>a complete U turn. I said I was wrong, We're right,
<v Speaker 3>you were gifted, and I'm sorry. So in the liner
<v Speaker 3>notes dedicated to his parents, says it was five minutes
<v Speaker 3>in return for twenty one years.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I'm glad that his dad saw the light. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>how could you not acknowledge talent? There, I means on
<v Speaker 1>display for the world to see that your son is
<v Speaker 1>one of the greatest, most gifted singer songwriters of his era.
<v Speaker 3>So you mentioned earlier there. With this song, they released
<v Speaker 3>it as Wham Featuring George Michael or just George Michael,
<v Speaker 3>which was a little unusual given that this was just
<v Speaker 3>their second album, but like I said, I feel like
<v Speaker 3>these guys had an idea of what WAM was going
<v Speaker 3>to be and it was not going to be something
<v Speaker 3>that lasted.
<v Speaker 1>It's interesting this sort of agreement that they have on this.
<v Speaker 1>Obviously they're prepping George for his solo career, but Andrew
<v Speaker 1>did write this song as well. So Andrew's just an
<v Speaker 1>incredibly gracious guy. He saw George's talent, he saw where
<v Speaker 1>he was going, and he got.
<v Speaker 3>Out of the way. Yeah. And if you watch the
<v Speaker 3>final concert, like the final of the final they'd come
<v Speaker 3>out with a third album that was really their goodbye album,
<v Speaker 3>and they do the final show of the final tour,
<v Speaker 3>these guys couldn't be getting along any better. Like, there's
<v Speaker 3>literally no hostility that they have towards each other. They're
<v Speaker 3>not acrimonious at all. They genuinely they love each other.
<v Speaker 3>They are best friend ends and they knew that it
<v Speaker 3>was just time for this phase of their lives to
<v Speaker 3>be over.
<v Speaker 1>Burnet, when he hugged Andrew at the end of that
<v Speaker 1>last show in June of nineteen eighty six, they had
<v Speaker 1>that huge concert Wembley Arena, hugged him and said, Andrew,
<v Speaker 1>I could not have done this without you. That to me.
<v Speaker 1>Andrew is happy to go off into the sunset and
<v Speaker 1>wish George the best, and of course George goes on
<v Speaker 1>to sell one hundred and twenty million albums worldwide from
<v Speaker 1>that point forward and puts himself in the echelon of
<v Speaker 1>the Princes and the Michael Jackson's and the Madonnas of
<v Speaker 1>the eighties.
<v Speaker 3>So I don't want to leave the song without talking
<v Speaker 3>about the Ceether cover. Okay, this is actually a really
<v Speaker 3>great cover. And see there is this South African band
<v Speaker 3>that is a very hardcore band, but they do a
<v Speaker 3>great job with the song. They got asked to do
<v Speaker 3>a Valentine's Day song and they thought this is so ridiculous.
<v Speaker 3>Let's do something crazy like a Wham song. They do
<v Speaker 3>it and it becomes a big hit for them. And
<v Speaker 3>so they're touring with Nickelback, which we'll be covering later on.
<v Speaker 3>Let's go who do you hate more? Nickelbacker, Creed. We
<v Speaker 3>will be covering those two bands later on this summer.
<v Speaker 1>Ready for it.
<v Speaker 3>And they're turing with Nickelback and they say, the younger
<v Speaker 3>kids in the crowd are like singing along because they
<v Speaker 3>think it's a Seither song. They don't know about Wham.
<v Speaker 3>And then you've got the older guys who are there
<v Speaker 3>for the hard rock, who are like giving them the
<v Speaker 3>finger and throwing bottles at them because they think they're
<v Speaker 3>I don't know something, homophobia thing or something I.
<v Speaker 1>Don't that's funny. Yeah, all right, are we ready for
<v Speaker 1>final judgment?
<v Speaker 3>Boys and girls? It is that time we have covered
<v Speaker 3>both of these albums. They are both incredible albums. They're
<v Speaker 3>both big if you will, they are big sig chair,
<v Speaker 3>big chair and make it big. Yes, it's time for
<v Speaker 3>final judgment. I nominate Jason Colvin to speak first.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So for me, I'm a pop guy, always been
<v Speaker 1>a pop guy. I love rock as well. These are
<v Speaker 1>two great mid eighties sort of pop rock albums. I
<v Speaker 1>would say that I love Make It Big more than most.
<v Speaker 1>The good hooks, good looks, formula I worked on me
<v Speaker 1>as a kid. I thought these guys were cool, thought
<v Speaker 1>they put out great music. I thought it was a
<v Speaker 1>lot of fun. I was all in, had this tape,
<v Speaker 1>loved it. But the Tears for Fears album is better.
<v Speaker 1>It speaks to my soul more. It's a little more serious.
<v Speaker 1>Although I tend to be more happy go lucky and
<v Speaker 1>less serious. I can't deny the head over heels. Everybody
<v Speaker 1>wants to rule the world. Shout mothers, talk for me,
<v Speaker 1>spiking the football, Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair.
<v Speaker 1>It's the better of these two albums.
<v Speaker 3>When we got done with Tears for Fears, I was
<v Speaker 3>thinking to myself, this is going to be a landslide
<v Speaker 3>for Tears for Fears. I didn't have high aspirations for
<v Speaker 3>Make It Big. I was at that moment that I
<v Speaker 3>hadn't yet studied it. I was thinking bubblegum pop, right,
<v Speaker 3>which I thought you would land both feed in. But
<v Speaker 3>upon going through the album, rediscovering some of these songs,
<v Speaker 3>looking at the lyrics of these songs in more detail,
<v Speaker 3>Make It Big is a high quality album. It has
<v Speaker 3>a feel good component that is kind of missing from
<v Speaker 3>Tears for Fears, Ye songs from the Big Chair, and
<v Speaker 3>so I think of it. I think of these two
<v Speaker 3>albums very much in the same way when we did
<v Speaker 3>our Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA versus Huey Lewis
<v Speaker 3>and the News Sports. If I'm going to the beach
<v Speaker 3>and it's sunny and I want to put the top
<v Speaker 3>down and crank up the volume. I'm bringing Huey Lewis
<v Speaker 3>in the news. If I've just had a fight with
<v Speaker 3>my spouse, or you know, some somebody just wrecked their
<v Speaker 3>car into my carr in the parking lot and I'm
<v Speaker 3>angry and it's nighttime, I want to listen to Bruce Springsteen. Right,
<v Speaker 3>So Tears for Fears is my angry drive music or
<v Speaker 3>maybe my sad drive music, and Wham is my happy,
<v Speaker 3>go lucky Let's go to the beach and have some
<v Speaker 3>fun and kick a volleyball around. So any depending on
<v Speaker 3>the day, one of the other of these albums is
<v Speaker 3>going to be number one for me. But overall, looking
<v Speaker 3>at the entire album, because they both have huge banger
<v Speaker 3>songs off of them. Right, I can't find filler songs
<v Speaker 3>in Songs from the Big Chair. I can and make
<v Speaker 3>it big. The filler songs are skippers, and I didn't
<v Speaker 3>have any skippers on Songs from the Big Chair. And
<v Speaker 3>like I said, Songs from the Big Chair was like
<v Speaker 3>that girl from high school that you kind of disregarded
<v Speaker 3>and then fell in love with when you saw her
<v Speaker 3>again forty years later. So I have to agree with you.
<v Speaker 3>Songs from the Big Chair is the better of these
<v Speaker 3>two albums. But dang, it is a much closer race
<v Speaker 3>than I thought it was.
<v Speaker 1>That is awesome. I love it you chose George Bichael
<v Speaker 1>in the in Excess battle. I did I think George
<v Speaker 1>Michael's guy six and tea a little bit?
<v Speaker 3>He does? Yeah, I I mean he is. He is
<v Speaker 3>truly or excuse me, was truly a gifted musician one
<v Speaker 3>of the trevies. I didn't realize he had passed away
<v Speaker 3>on Christmas Day, Christmas Day, twenty sixteen. Yep, all right,
<v Speaker 3>that does it for this matchup. Next week we have
<v Speaker 3>got another stellar matchup.
<v Speaker 1>We are doing a what the heck Happened between Jaws
<v Speaker 1>three and Beverly Hills Cop three with our good buddy
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Johnson from the Film By podcast.
<v Speaker 3>I just want you to know you are to blame
<v Speaker 3>the fact that I just spent six dollars and ninety
<v Speaker 3>nine cents to buy a blue ray disc of Jaws three,
<v Speaker 3>which we left before it was over in the theater
<v Speaker 3>forty one years ago.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, listen, we covered Jaws in season one the Film
<v Speaker 1>By Guys. They covered Jaws two during their nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 1>eight thing. We both did JOS four with them together?
<v Speaker 1>And what the heck happened?
<v Speaker 6>Thing?
<v Speaker 1>We can't just not do JOSS three good, but we're not.
<v Speaker 1>Come back next week for our discussion on that.
<v Speaker 3>Guys, if you have listened this far, please just show
<v Speaker 3>us a little bit of love. You don't even have
<v Speaker 3>to spend money just to hit the five star on
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<v Speaker 3>right now, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>So you know who we rely on to share the word,
<v Speaker 1>people like yourselves.
<v Speaker 3>There you go, Thank you very much, Thank you, guys.
<v Speaker 1>We will see you next week for Jows three versus
<v Speaker 1>Beverly Hills Cop three. What the heck happened? You put
<v Speaker 1>boom boom in mah.
<v Speaker 3>W my phone.
<v Speaker 6>Here we go