‘Freedom’: The song that made George Michael want to be a songwriter
In the early 1980s, the whirlwind success of WHAM! was practically unheard of. Even though George Michael and Andrew Ridgely had been making waves in their local scene for years, the journey from humble songwriters to global superstars in just three years turned them into one of the greatest forces in pop music overnight. While the group already had various tracks in their arsenal, Michael thought this song was the true turning point in his career.
When looking at where the group started, though, no one would have thought that Michael was poised to be one of the most revered pop songwriters of his time. Though tracks on the band’s first album, like ‘Young Guns’ and ‘Bad Boys’ had bulletproof melodies behind them, Michael was still working out what worked for him as a songwriter, with ‘Club Tropicana’ becoming a significant departure from their rap-adjacent style.
As the duo bounced ideas off each other, though, Michael saw his future start happening with more complex pop songs like ‘Careless Whisper’. Although the tune was conceived when the pair were still cutting their teeth as songwriters, Michael was convinced it was a number one track before they had even recorded it.
Before they had time to hone their craft, though, the band had to take to the road. Becoming one of the biggest sensations in pop among teenagers, Michael was ready to come into his own when writing the follow-up to their debut Fantastic. Even though Make it Big would only contain eight tracks, each would set the standard for the tour de force that the group would become.
Outside of ‘Careless Whisper’, the exuberance behind songs like ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ was too infectious for anyone to ignore, earning Michael and Ridgley some of the highest accolades that any pop artist had ever seen. Once in the studio, Michael thought he had hit on something closer to his true self on ‘Freedom’.
Structured like a typical WHAM! hit, Michael created a song about dealing with part-time love, which would become another massive hit for the band in the next year. When talking about the track later, Michael would be convinced that ‘Freedom’ was the model on which the rest of his career would be based.
Discussing the creation of the track, Michael said: “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.”
Even though Michael knew what he wanted to be as a songwriter, he knew he was far outgrowing the model of a songwriting duo. After ‘Careless Whisper’ became the first track billed as ‘WHAM! featuring George Michael’, the singer got the wheels turning in his head to become a solo superstar, eventually playing a final farewell show with Ridgely at Wembley Stadium.
The song’s allure never truly went away, either, with Michael creating a pseudo-sequel to the track on the album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. Even though Michael had a way of turning any melody into gold, ‘Freedom’ remains the first song where it stopped being a fun hobby and became a higher calling.
