George Michael: "Father" Of Incest Pop? (Go "Figure") AKA Sexiest Cab Driver Ever

The pop songs in which a male singer refers to his loved one as "baby" are too numerous to mention, but with "Father Figure," I think George Michael finally took this incestuous notion to its proper, logical conclusion.

George's musical achievements are many, but it's time to give credit where credit is due: although it faces stiff competition from the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me," Benny Mardones's "Into the Night," and Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire," "Father Figure" may be the statutory rape anthem of the '80s. Despite George's proclamation that he has "had enough of crime," I would surmise that there is one crime he still hasn't quite had enough of. In fact, not only is he willing to be this underage girl's (or boy's?) "father," but also, potentially, her "preacher," her "teacher" - indeed, "anything" she might have in mind. Anything? How about cowboy, construction worker ... maybe a cop?

But don't misunderstand me. The vaguely predatory nature of "Father Figure" is not a bug, but a feature. It gives what could have been a bland ballad a distinctively menacing edge. Take the incestuous jailbait out of "Father Figure," and what have you got? Nothing. Nada. Bupkus. You've got a Whitney Houston album track. It needs its pubescent longing.

Or maybe not, given that the melody is arguably the most hauntingly seductive one that George ever came up with. Indeed, "Father Figure" is George Michael's chief contribution to what my eight-year-old self dubbed the Summer of '88's "Egyptian Thing." No snake charmer from the Arabian Nights could have conjured up a synth riff as beguilingly hypnotic as the one that first appears between 0:09 and 0:18. Hey, you ride that camel, George, that's what I say. You ride that camel all night long. One has to admit, Georgios the Greek sets quite the Mediterranean mood here: gentle "cymbal" taps to start with, then two "bass drum" beats followed by finger snaps and some sort of "sandpaper" percussion effect. The spell is so enchanting that the listener may not even notice the tinkling piano that enters at the start of the second verse, but it's what those in the business call a "nice touch."

The chorus almost shows up without warning, as a gang of female gospel vocalists pop up and make the religious undertones of the words "father" and "preacher" just a tad more explicit. Those random session pros sure have got the jailbait "spirit," all right. They've got it so bad, in fact, that they practically drown out George's "lead" singing. Seriously, just listen closely to that initial chorus. For a #1 hit, this is kind of a ... weird mix, you know? George sort of "whisper-grunts" the phrases "it would make me ... very happy ... please let me" in counterpoint to the back-up singers, as if he's afraid of getting caught with his hands in his teen sexpot's pajama bottoms.

Suddenly, during the bridge, the mood takes a turn for the intense, with the melody shifting dramatically as George really, really tries to convince his underage object of conquest that she should totally, totally trust him: "So when you remember the ones who-have-lied/Who said that they cared but then laughed-as-you cried/Beautiful darling, don't think of meeeeeeee/because all I ever wanted..." And BOOM: the main melody returns reassuringly, along with some smoldering Spanish guitar, and, frankly, if I were this girl, at this point I'd sleep with the guy no matter what our age gap might be.

By the start of the third bridge, the intensity seems to have died down again, as the back-up singers coo "Greet me with the eyes of a child," but then George really lets it rip (with generous application of echo) on "Just hold on! Hold on! And I won't let you go-ohhhhh, mah baby!" This time through the chorus, he is right out in front and not ashamed to hide his taboo inclinations. All that pent-up longing for a Lolita to call his own comes pouring out at 5:03 ("I will be yoah-hooooe!") and 5:06 ("fahhh-thuuuuh!"), culminating in the magnificently shameless and undisguised exhortation "I'll your dadd-ay, whoa!" All the instrumentation recedes as George, alone in the dark, puts one last little flourish on this bad boy: "Till the end of ... tyyyme," pausing before the word "time" as if he's glancing around for the nearest alleyway to duck through. The Egyptian synth riff takes a final bow, and the curtain closes. For one more evening at least, this devious patriarch is safe from society's disapproving censure.



I suppose I'm playing up the predatory nature of the song a bit much, because honestly, "Father Figure," like any classic '80s ballad, can be interpreted in a number of ways, as the video certainly demonstrates. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... the sexiest cab driver in the history of film. Imagine if Travis Bickle had been sexy instead of psychotic. Let's see how this sounds: "You talkin' to me ... honey?" Kinda works? George's co-star in this sordid affair was one Tania Coleridge, later known as Tania Harcourt-Cooze. Initially I assumed Tania was just some random supermodel with a boring background, but whoa, was I off. From Wikipedia:

The daughter of Major William Duke Coleridge, 5th Baron Coleridge of Ottery St Mary, a Major in the Coldstream Guards, and his first wife Everild Tania Hambrough, she is directly related to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge ... Born in Kenya, she followed her father's British Army career until her parents divorced in 1977 when she was 11 ... Completing a fine arts diploma in London, she joined the punk rock revolution, and would hang out on the Kings Road, Chelsea ... Having met Willie Harcourt-Cooze in her late teens, she married the Venezuelan-based businessman in 1993. Using the funds from the sale of his London flat and his family's money, the couple purchased a 1,000 acres (400 ha) cocoa hacienda in Choroni, and planted more than 50,000 Criollo cocoa trees ... She came to public prominence again in 2008 with the airing of the fly-on-the-wall documentary, Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory, centred on her husband's efforts to be one of the first Britons since the Cadbury family to grow, import and produce their own chocolate.

Hold on a second. We've got Victorian poet ancestors, Kenyan births (take that Obama!), Venezuelan chocolate magnates, pun-laden British documentary titles ... and that's not even mentioning the video for "Father Figure"! I guess dating a cab driver really would have been slumming it for this girl. I love the moment in the video at 0:27 where the cab comes into view and behind the wheel we see ... George Michael. But not just any George Michael, it's the "iconic" George Michael: sunglasses, stubble, crucifix earrings, leather jacket ... it's the Faith-era George in all his flawless glory, and he's driving a fucking cab. Consider my disbelief ... suspended.

At first it's not really clear if these two know each other. We see George in his bedroom, tacking magazine cuttings of Tania up onto his wall in a shrine-like manner, then we see Tania backstage with her pasty white rivals, prepping for a runway show. Suddenly, BOOM, at 1:53, George starts getting his hetero on, and you realize that these two are in more than just a "driver/passenger relationship" if you know what I mean. Shots of their not-at-all-fictional lovemaking are juxtaposed with shots of Tania strutting her stuff for the paparazzi in some type of business suit with a ... cone bra/corset thingy? Whatever she's wearing, the point is, she's got "it." But you know where she gets her "it" from? Her secret cab driver boyfriend, that's where. At 2:11, the camera pans across her brightly-lit dressing room, where she's being delicately, attentively dressed (or undressed?), and then gradually wanders into the shadows, where George lurks mysteriously, lighting a cigarette, giving her the hidden mojo she needs without dragging her down into his rough-and-tumble milieu.

Later, a charming photographer tries to coax the right "look" from Tania, while George surreptitiously peaks through the door in the back (at 3:00). I mean, the photographer's cute and sensitive and all, but he can't give her the animalistic passion that Mr. Cabbie can. Sometimes the pressure can gnaw at the most poised professional, as the brief "freak out" montage beginning at 4:41 illustrates: Tania slaps George, pushes her photographer, and even tosses her lipstick apparatus onto the table in supremely diva-esque fashion. God, life as a supermodel is so hard, you know? But ultimately, she gets back out there on the runway, as the faceless crowd greets her adoringly. Little do they know about the brutal, private agonies, about the sacrifice it takes for her to get there, but George knows. At 5:07 there's a brief shot of George with his head against the pillow, opening his eyes, as if he's saying, "Don't forget me, baby, I made you who you are." Finally, at 5:18, while she's out on that runway working what God gave her, she spots her lover (ex-lover?) in the audience, standing there anonymously, emotionlessly. But sometimes, nothing need be said. A glance can say it all.

As always, Professor Higglediggle offers a rather opaque take:

Often read as a vigorous embrace of the commodity scientism of patriarchal attachment, "Father Figure" can potentially be (re)read as a denial of the overworked codes of pre-sexualized discourse, albeit from within a heterocentric framework. The singer's rejection of the pre-existing, pseudo-hegemonic order ("Sometimes love can be mistaken for a crime") acts as a post-Nietzschean declaration of liberated ideals ("Anything you have in mind"). The interstitial suggestions of ephebophilia ("put your tiny hand in mine," etc.) sit uneasily against the singer's inequitable occupation (cab driver) and desire to mediate the taboo of underage courtship with filial duty.