Some time in September of 1990, on my last day of high school before finals began, our maths teacher gave us the day off. Maths was the last two hours of school on Fridays, and on this particular one, she invited the entire class to her house for a farewell braai.
Come midday we all piled into any available cars and went off to party as a class for the last time before final exams.
Once school was out, our English and Science teachers pitched up. Yea, that science teacher.
Some time in the late afternoon, with the rest of the class dive-bombing the swimming pool and partying, I found myself sat in the lounge, chilling. My Science teacher was perusing the albums on the shelf and pulled out Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1. He put the needle on the record and he and I sat in silence and awe for 48 minutes, while outside the squeals and laughter of twenty 18-year-olds filtered through.
There’s something extraordinary about sharing an experience in silence with someone. And at the end of the album we both just shook our heads in wonder and disbelief at the beauty and grandeur of this album.
I kinda of fell in love with this album, I mean like proper in love. Like, when you can’t stop thinking about someone twenty-four hours a day, and you only ever feel happy and fulfilled when you’re in their company. I just listened to it again, again, and again, for months on end. When I think of Cowboys and Angels, or They Won’t Go Where I Go, or Mother’s Pride, I’m back in my childhood bedroom in the dark, earphones blasting, night after night, listening to George’s incredible voice, instead of sleeping.
Despite how brilliant the whole album is, the song I keep coming back to is Praying for Time.
For me, at the time, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It breaks the rules of pop, (verse, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus), and instead stays on this almost monotonous drone that carries through the whole song, broken only by two choruses before coming to, I would argue, a too-soon end. if ever there ever was a song that’s too short, Praying for Time is it. It is just magnificent, and epic, and sad, and uplifting and, and, and…
And like the song, George Michael’s life was ended too soon.