Did George Michael have a head trauma to thank for his musical passion?
Most people have vivid memories of when they first got into music, exactly how it happened, and how they fell further down the rabbit hole when it came to expanding their horizons. George Michael, however, feels as though his relationship with his craft came about under much more unusual circumstances.
As one of the most important figures in the history of British pop music, both as one half of Wham! and as a solo artist afterwards, one might expect this love of songwriting and the craft that goes into it to have been a completely natural occurrence in his life, perhaps nurtured by his parents and friends, or simply having existed since the earliest years of his life.
However, as far as he believes, it was more a case of fortune, almost as though it happened by accident. The ‘Careless Whisper’ singer revealed on his episode of Desert Island Discs in 2007 with Kirsty Young that he has a significant head trauma to thank for this lifelong fascination, and that prior to this incident, he had never paid much attention to the world of music.
Speaking to the host, he revealed how a sharp blow to the noggin was the catalyst for him falling head over heels for pop music, and that from the age of eight, this was all he could think about with regard to his interests. In fact, his interests prior to this had been dramatically different, and this bump steered him down a completely different path to the one he’d anticipated following at a young age. “All my interests changed,” he revealed. “Everything changed in six months. I had been interested in insects and creepy-crawlies. I used to get up at 5-o’clock in the morning and go into this field behind our garden and collect insects before everyone else got up.”
Michael went on to divulge how this became his primary obsession in life, and tried to dive into exactly why he developed this sudden interest after the injury. “Suddenly, all I wanted to know about was music,” he continued. “It just seemed a very strange thing, and I have a theory it was maybe something to do with this accident, because of this whole left-brain, right-brain thing. Nobody in my family seemed to notice, but I became absolutely obsessed with music, and everything changed after that.”
The thing is, it’s not uncommon for a bang to the head to alter our brain chemistry, and there are countless examples of people who have woken up a different person after a blow to the head. There have been studies conducted on people who have experienced neurological trauma, such as strokes or head injuries, and have woken up with a significant difference in their lives. This might mean that someone with a Scouse accent wakes up speaking like a true Irishman for seemingly no reason, or they may suddenly be able to solve mathematical equations or translate to different languages with minimal effort required. On the other hand, you might just wake up with a raging headache and find you’re no different from how you were before.
George Michael was fortunate enough to have suddenly gained a significant interest in something that would dramatically guide his life from this point onwards, and while he could have ended up as a leading entomologist, it’s frankly a miracle and a blessing that this blow to the head guided him in a different direction.
