Digital Cover Story: The Musical Journey of George Michael and a “Songwriting Exercise” That Led to an Iconic Holiday Hit

When David Austin was six and his best friend George Michael was 5, they recorded their first songs on a Revox reel-to-reel tape recorder. Austin’s mother, who was best friends with George’s mom, taught him how to work the machine, which the kids used for some of their early recordings.

“Not only do I remember, but I have the recordings,” Austin tells American Songwriter. “There are four or five recordings of us as kids singing these songs, and when I listen to them today, what’s remarkable is how commercial the tone of his voice is, in the very same way that Michael Jackson had that commercial tone as a child. There was very definitely something special about that 5-year-old voice.”

Austin’s father also made trumpets and other instruments for the British music company Boosey & Hawkes and supplied the two boys with clarinets and guitars, which Austin preferred, and drumsticks for Michael, who’d pound the imaginary skins on a bed pillow. At the same time, they “played” along to some of their favorite songs. “Drumming was his [Michael’s] first instrument, and this influenced his production work later in life,” says Austin. “Like many great producers with a drumming background, George had an innate sense of groove and feel, which are essential to making great music, and everything hangs off it.”

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Recording songs, covers of “Wig Wam Bam” by the Sweet and Elton John‘s “Crocodile Rock,” the two would also craft simple, catchy little songs, including the first one they ever wrote together: “The Music Maker of the World.” In retrospect, Austin says the title was prophetic of Michael’s future superstardom. 

As a child, Michael’s imagination was more vivid than that of other kids his age, Austin remembers. He was fascinated by nature and “obsessed with butterflies, insects, glow worms, and all sorts of wildlife,” he recalls. “Behind his house were two large, overgrown fields, and at 5 or 6 a.m., we would explore them after slipping through his back garden. He was also a very creative child, always singing and making up stories. We often played Batman and Robin, taking turns being Batman. Looking back, he was an incredibly sweet child, though he frequently broke his glasses.”

Music, their other obsession, would also be satisfied with the radio, listening to everything from the Jackson 5, David Cassidy, and the Osmonds. By the time they were 8 and 9, Austin born a year earlier than Michael in 1962, their musical tastes developed and naturally slipped into the glam rock of David Bowie, Slade, Roxy Music, and Sweet, then further into rock with Queen—everything up to and including A Night at the Opera—and early Led Zeppelin.

British singer-songwriter George Michael (1963-2016) of pop duo Wham!, UK, 8th November 1983. (Photo by John Rogers/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Michael was drawn to John Bonham’s drumming and was gifted the band’s albums by a customer at his father’s restaurant, including his two favorites, Led Zeppelin II and IV. “We also discovered Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and the Animals, and, of course, we were obsessed with Bowie, from The Man Who Sold the World’ to ‘Scary Monsters’ and ‘Let’s Dance,’” says Austin. “We couldn’t get enough of Bowie. Albums like Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Low, and Young Americans were some of our absolute favorites.”

In their late teens, both tapped into ska and anything else they could extract from the radio and were always soaked in the music their parents were playing at home. Austin’s house played everything from Johnny Cash, the Four Tops, and the Beatles, while Michael’s parents spun albums by the Supremes, Don McLean, and Tom Jones. “Whenever we saw each other—which was most days—we’d listen to those albums together,” recalls Austin. Michael later cited acts like Jones and the music of Motown as some of his earliest musical influences.

By the time Michael was 17, he was already busking in the London underground, including his favorite Queen song, Brian May’s “39,” and started working as a DJ at the Bel Air Restaurant in Northwood London and clubs around Watford and Bushey. During this time, he would often write songs while commuting by bus to work. Most songs he could retain in his head, including what would later become his first No. 1 hit as a solo artist, “Careless Whisper.”

When Michael was 11, he had already met his future Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, when both attended the Bushey Meads School in Hertfordshire, England. Within two years, the two formed a band and were writing together.

“We’d do these skit radio shows up in his bedroom, and we’d do jingles, just a pastiche of stuff, really,” remembers Ridgeley of their early musical experiments together. “I’m not entirely sure why we did that, but it amused us immensely.”

Wham!, named after a night out dancing in Soho, London, after Ridgeley yelled out “wham bam,” was always the precursor to something else for Michael and Ridgeley. As teens, their figment of success was mapped out. The plan was always to form a band that would transition them to the next stage. For Michael, it was a successful solo career and pop stardom. At first, their musical aspirations were stymied, Ridgeley recalls, by Michael’s family expectations. They wanted “Yog,” as he was affectionately nicknamed by Ridgelely at school after mispronouncing the Greek pronunciation of Michael’s name Georgios as “yogurt,” to pursue an academic career.

At some point, Ridgeley says he “railroaded” Michael into taking the next step. “It was a question of ‘Now or never,’” says Ridgeley, which prompted them to form their school band the Executive at 13. The Executive gave them the impetus to write original material, and soon after forming, both started exploring songwriting more.

“I think we both felt that you needed to be original,” Ridgeley adds. “There was no real artistic merit in covering other songs. We couldn’t see where that would lead, to be honest. Why did we think we were going to be good at it? Well, naive confidence,” laughs Ridgeley. “But we both had a good sense of melody and pop sensibility that convinced us and gave us the confidence to press ahead.”

By 1981, the two formed Wham! and released their debut Fantastic in 1983. Michael wrote the majority of the tracks on the album with Ridgeley’s contribution on “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)” and “Club Tropicana,” the latter a song they wrote earlier on. A year later, Make It Big arrived and the duo’s first No. 1 hit “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” followed by another, the closing ballad “Careless Whisper.”

Later that year, Michael also set a goal for himself, an exercise in songwriting: he’d write a Christmas song. “He wanted a definitive Wham! Christmas offering,” says Ridgeley. “A Christmas number one was what George wanted. It was such an amazing, extraordinary songwriting feat because it was an exercise—and he did it.”

Released on December 3, 1984, “Last Christmas” peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the UK chart and internationally, and remains one of the most streamed songs in the UK. In 2023, “Last Christmas” also became the Official Christmas Number 1 single in the UK, a feat that would have made Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 at age 53, “beside himself after all of these years,” Ridgeley told Official Chart, to have the song recognized at the top.

“Not many people have written an enduring, resonant, and evocative Christmas song as that,” says Ridgeley. “There are some. It’s a jewel in a multi-jeweled, bedecked crown, but it’s one of the bigger jewels.”

To commemorate its fourth decade is the release of the Last Christmas 40th Anniversary EP, featuring George Michael’s 2006 performance of the song at Wembley Arena in London.

“Careless Whisper” was another “happy coincidence,” says Ridgeley, who also co-wrote the song with Michael. After Ridgeley added his chord sequence, using a Fender Telecaster gifted to him on his 18th birthday, the sax melody Michael already had in his head, both pieces fit.

For a while, “Careless Whisper” sat around after they were signed in 1982. It was an “outlier” for a while since it was a ballad. 

[RELATED: George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” Turns 40 With New EP]

“It was a different type of song, and it didn’t necessarily conform to the Wham! character, personality, spirit, and so it was always ‘What are we going to do with this one?’” reveals Ridgeley. Eventually, the demo they recorded of “Careless Whisper” became the template they’d use. It later came to completion with the iconic saxophone solo by Stephen Gregory, who had previously played on the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women,” and with Fleetwood Mac, Fela Kuti, Van Morrison, Ginger Baker, Alison Moyet, and more as a session musician.

For Gregory, the ninth time was the charm. “George walks in and says, ‘I think we got it,’ and he points at me,” remembers Gregory. “Then he says, ‘You’re number nine.’” Gregory was the ninth saxophonist who was asked to come in to try to capture the sax solo Michael had running in his head.

“I just thought, ‘Oh, this is the slowest thing,” Gregory says was his first impression of the song. “Then, about three weeks after I did it, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. It was mad.”

Remembering the ballad, which was also released as a solo single for Michael, and “Last Christmas,” which both marked their 40th anniversary in 2024, Ridgeley says Michael had the formula of a great song figured out early on.

Early evidence of Michael’s songwriting potential was their first No. 1 “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and even earlier on with the Fantastic closing track “Young Guns (Go For It),” which peaked at No. 3 in the UK. Fantastic singles “Bad Boys” and “Club Tropicana” also fared well on the UK charts at No. 2 and 4, respectively.

“‘Young Guns’ was an example of George pulling a rabbit out of the hat when he needed to, because we’d had [their debut single] “Wham Rap,” which was not a success by any stretch of the imagination, and we needed a follow-up. We needed to exploit what profile we had achieved at that point, and we needed a hit. Then, he did it again with “Wake Me Up…,’” says Ridgeley.

From there, Michael’s songwriting only evolved and became more sophisticated as time went on, driven by a “melodic interpretation of the idea behind the lyrical concept” of the song, says Ridgeley.

“George assumed the songwriting duties in Wham!,” he adds. “He knew what he was writing for, and that helped him develop as a songwriter because he had parameters within which to write a pop song. He had a vehicle for those songs.”

George Michael (l) and Andrew Ridgeley of WHAM! in Japan, January 1985. (Michael Putland/Getty Images)

When Ridgeley inducted Michael, posthumously, into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, he recalled how Michael always considered himself a “songwriter” first before a singer.

Ridgeley couldn’t disagree more.

“His singing voice was one of the most beautiful male voices in perhaps the whole of contemporary pop history,” says Ridgeley. “It was the tool by which his songs achieved such penetration because if they’d been sung by a lesser singer, I don’t know that they would necessarily have been what they were. He made amazing records out of brilliant songs, and one of the reasons for that was his voice.”

Ridgeley continued, “The voice was something else. The voice transcended. He sang other people’s songs better than they sang them. I personally believe that his voice was his greatest talent.”

For Wham! 1984 was a definitive year, with Make It Big going to No. 1 internationally, including on the Billboard Hot 100, and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Careless Whisper” both going to No. 1 in the UK and the U.S., and single “Freedom” topping the chart in the UK. “Then it was like, ‘Okay, we’re going to round off a stellar year with ‘Last Christmas,’” says Ridgeley.

In 1986, Wham! released their final album Music from the Edge of Heaven and played their last concert at Wembley on June 28. A year later, Austin took over where Wham! left off as a longtime contributor throughout Michael’s solo career.

On Michael’s 1987 solo debut Faith, the two co-wrote “Look at Your Hands” and later collaborated on “You Have Been Loved” from his third album Older in 1996. Austin went on to co-write an ode to John Lennon and Elvis Presley, “John and Elvis Are Dead,” from Michael’s fifth and final album Patience from 2004, and the two also worked on the 2009 holiday single “December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas).” Initially, Michael wanted to give the holiday song to the Spice Girls, then to Michael Bublé, before deciding to keep it for himself.

“The way we wrote together did evolve over the years,” shares Austin, who had released his own music in the ’80s and even appeared playing guitar in Wham! music video for “The Edge of Heaven” in 1986. “In the very early days, George would compose everything in his head—the lyrics, vocals, melodies, and even the rhythm,” adds Austin. ” In those early days, George rarely recorded or put things down when he was writing. He always said, ‘The good ones you remember, the bad ones you forget.’”

When Michael released his second album Listen Without Prejudice in 1990, it wasn’t about an album packed with pop hits like “Faith,” “Father Figure,” “Monkey,” and “I Want Your Sex,” says Austin. “It was more about his writing and his voice, showcasing a different side of his artistry,” he adds. “Of course, the album opens with the global anthem, ‘Freedom! ’90.’”

Older was released following the death of Michael’s first love Brazilian designer Anselmo Feleppa in 1993 and produced more top 10 hits with “Fastlove” and “Jesus to a Child.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘Older’ was an exploratory album; I’d say it was a deeply personal album for George,” adds Austin. “There’s not one song on that album that isn’t about Anselmo. It’s an album about loss, pain, grieving, and recovery. It’s a very honest album and that’s why it resonates with so many people. George would later say that ‘Older’ was his ‘greatest moment.’”

A year after the release of Older, Michael’s mother Lesley died from cancer. He later released an album of jazz standards and contemporary covers, Songs from the Last Century, in 1999 before Patience.

After Wham! disbanded, Ridgeley distanced himself from music to pursue other passions including acting and motor racing before releasing his only solo album Son of Albert, in 1990. For Ridgeley, who released his memoir Wham! George & Me in 2019, the legacy of the duo was always in their natural joie de vivre.

“It has endured,” says Ridgeley. “It still has relevance, and it still ultimately brings joy to people. Wham! stands for the vitality of life. Wham! stands for the excitement of life. It stands for all the joyousness that life can afford, and I think that’s what people still recognize.”

He continues, “We were unashamed in making Wham! We never took ourselves seriously. The songwriting was serious, the recording was serious, but Wham! wasn’t serious. Wham! was about the lightness of life. And perhaps more than any other artist, Wham! gives people that sense and elevates that lightness.”

Michael’s legacy sits in Wham! and a solo career that ultimately surmounted the duo’s output. “I believe George was one of those rare individuals who was put on this earth for a reason,” says Austin, who released his documentary on Michael Freedom Uncut in 2022. “He was blessed with the gift of music, and through his words and songs, people find comfort and hope in their sorrow, joy and love, and healing. Through his kindness and philanthropy, which continues even today, he has touched and changed countless lives, and it all stems from his extraordinary gift. His music.”

The songs and “the voice,” as Ridgeley calls Michael’s voice, will always live on. “Great music endures. It’s timeless,” he says. “The enduring nature of songs are the ones that have a quality and a character that transcends time. I think that as our careers developed, George certainly recognized very early on that he was on to something. There is more immortality gained through music, and that has proved to be the case. Wham! will be immortal. George, as an artist, will be immortal.”

Ridgeley laughs, “We weren’t necessarily shooting for immortality, but it looks like we may well have achieved that, which is quite something to be proud of.”

Cover Photo by : Andrew MacPherson