FEATURE:
Groovelines
George Michael – Jesus to a Child
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I may write…
a thirtieth anniversary feature about Older closer to 13th May. However, I did want to spend time with perhaps its most beautiful and heartbreaking song, as it as released as a single on 8th January, 1996 - so its thirtieth anniversary is not too far away. Jesus to a Child was premiered at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Berlin in November 1994. The third studio album from George Michael, I think Older is one of his most overlooked and under-loved works (it was reissued in 2022). Its sublime and gorgeous lead single is so spellbinding. In terms of George Michael’s vocal and his lyrics. I will drop in what the critics said about this song. On an album that contains Michael classics like Fastlove and You Have Been Loved, I think Jesus to a Child is the standout. I did not know that Michael had secretly donated all of the single's royalties to ChildLine. Money that helped save thousands of children, he wanted to keep it secret. However, after his death in 2016, Esther Rantzen, founder of the charity, revealed this fact. George Michael’s generosity extended beyond the charity. He donated to much to so many causes and people, often without it being made public. It gives Jesus to a Child this extra level of importance. It is a stunning song. It is heartbreaking learning about the song and its inspiration. Jesus to a Child is a tribute to Michael’s Brazilian lover, Anselmo Feleppa. The two met whilst George Michael was performing in Rio de Janeiro in 1991. Feleppa tragically died in 1993 from an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage. Michael could not discuss the song’s subject and inspiration as his homosexuality was not publicly known at that time. It was not until he was very publicly outed by a Los Angeles police officer in 1998 that he could more openly talk about the song. The fact Michael wrote this song but could not talk about his sexuality. Also, when Feleppa was dying, Michael could not travel to e with him through fear of being outed and the backlash that would incur..
I want to move to an article from The Telegraph that was published shortly after George Michael’s death on Christmas Day 2016. We learn about the tragic story behind Jesus to a Child. It starts by recalling what George Michael said to Kirsty Young when he appeared as a guest on Desert Island Discs back in 2007:
“It was a strange, strange thing. There have only been three times in my life when I’ve really fallen for anyone. And each time, on first sight, something has clicked in my head that told me I was going to know that person. And it happened with Anselmo across a lobby. So, I met him in that lobby and I didn’t understand why the click happened. This was a man in a Brazilian hotel, I’m never going to see him again, why did that happen? I didn’t understand what was going on. This was the first love of my entire life, this was the first person I ever shared my life with.”
It took Michael until he was 24 to fully realise he was gay, but Feleppa helped him to accept his sexuality: “It’s very hard to be proud of your sexuality when it hasn’t given you any joy,” he told The Huffington Post in 2011, “but once you have found somebody you really love... it’s not so tough.”
Feleppo and Michael embarked upon a freewheeling affair. The Brazilian was a couple of years older than the singer, and more worldly-wise – he showed Michael, who had been brought up by two hardworking, self-made parents, how to enjoy spending his money. He recalled on Radio 4 that he was “still quite afraid, still not knowing how to spend money, I was terrified of my lifestyle removing my ability to connect to what I did.”
They cruised the Caribbean in a yacht, went dancing in New York and Los Angeles’s most glamorous gay clubs, Michael reportedly gave his lover a Mercedes, a Cartier watch, an apartment.
“Anyone who knew me before I met Anselmo would tell you that he opened me up completely – just in allowing myself to trust my intuition,” Michael told The Mirror. “To say to myself, this isn't going to hurt. Life is not going to hurt you if you just open up to it a little bit more. And I am so grateful for that."
"I really believe that he changed the way I look at my life. And I think he changed it because he was such an incredibly positive person. He had a love of life that we just can't grasp in this country. I think he took away that slightly puritanical, Victorian aspect of my upbringing.”
The fug of grief and marijuana rendered Michael creatively dormant. He didn’t write for 18 months, until he did –conjuring up Jesus to a Child in less than an hour. The lyrics, "I'm blessed I know / Heaven sent and Heaven stole / You smiled at me Like Jesus to a child", seemed oblique at the time, but were actually the first reference Michael made in song to falling in love with a man.
From there tumbled an album, Older, inspired by and wholly dedicated to Feleppa – as he had written in the album sleeve: “This album is dedicated to Anselmo Feleppa, who changed the way that I look at my life."
As Feleppo had shown Michael how to fully embrace his sexuality, so Michael was unashamed in naming his muse: “I made it so clear on that album that I was not going to run away from all the Press reports about Anselmo," he told The Mirror. "Not to put a dedication to him would be ludicrous because so much of it was about him. Bereavement tinges the whole album. It had to be in everything I wrote at the time because I write directly about what has just happened to me."
However, the album – and its tell-tale sleeve – wasn’t released until 1996. Michael wouldn’t come out publicly until 1998, and, while he wasn’t unambiguous about his sexuality, the press were still wary to label his and Feleppo’s relationship as anything more than “close friends”.
Jesus to a Child received its first public airing at the MTV European Music Awards in 1994, when Michael performed during the ceremony in Berlin. It took another two years to be released as a single, Michael’s first in nearly four years, and initially critics were underwhelmed.
“This doesn’t sound like a very inspired start to the next phase of his career”, bemoaned David Sinclair in The Times in December 1995. “A long, maundering ballad, it suffers from a lack of direction and presence. The bittersweet lyric has a certain romantic appeal, but the message of hope comes swathed in layers of introspection and self-pity: "And what have I learned from all this pain?/I thought I'd never feel the same about anyone or anything again."
Jesus to a Child topped the charts instantly once it was released, in the cold new dawn of 1996. Older hit the record shelves five months later, bringing with it speculation about the Brazilian listed in its small-print. At nearly seven minutes long, it remains the longest song to ever grace the top of the UK Top 40”.
Before wrapping up with some critical reviews of Jesus to a Child, there is this interview archive from when George Michael spoke with 8 Days magazine in 1996 about this return into the spotlight. He had not gone anywhere but, fickle as the music press is, they felt like this was a comeback. Published in May 1996, George Michael discussed, among other things, the first single from Older:
“His first single off it, ‘Jesus to a Child’ is, he says, the best thing he’s ever done.
“It’s a special song. It was one of those songs that just felt like it was handed to me. I didn’t have to try very hard. It came naturally. It was recorded over five days but written in just a couple of hours.”
The single is a tribute to a close Brazilian friend, Anselmo Feleppa, who died suddenly from brain haemorrhage two years ago.
“Yes, it’s a sad song but I hope it has a positive message too – I didn’t want it to be all ‘woe is me, woe is me’. It is a song about bereavement. But also about hope.”
And hope has been important to the singer in recent years. For the longest time, there was always someone ready to write him off. They did it when he was with Wham! They did it when he went solo. And they have done it on a regular basis the past few years as the singer fought a long and bitter legal battle to free himself from Sony, his record company, which he claimed treated him like a piece of faulty software”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Brad Branson
I am going to finish with a selection of the critical reviews for Jesus to a Child. If some felt it was too slushy and not a naturally commercial hit, there is no denying the popularity of the song. A number one in the U.K. and multiple countries, I think it has not aged in three decades. Still so poignant and moving. I am also including some retrospective reviews, to show how it is seen so many years after its release:
“Barry Walters from The Advocate wrote that on the song, "Michael compares the emotion of a now-deceased lover to that of the Lord, who was, after all, a man. The tone is intensely elegiac, and it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to consider this a love song to a boyfriend who has died of AIDS." Larry Flick from Billboard complimented it as a "gorgeous, quietly insinuating pop ballad." He noted that the words "are, by turns, melancholic and romantic and are delivered with delicate ease", adding that "musically, Michael layers light, shuffling percussion with mild acoustic guitar lines and sweetly understated strings." Steve Baltin from Cash Box declared it as a "lush ballad", adding that "he's never sounded more Adult Contemporary than he does here. 'Jesus to a Child' is a hit as surely as some sport will strike this year." Daily Mirror named it "George's 'best-ever' song". Sarah Davis from Dotmusic remarked that in the context of the album, "Jesus to a Child" "sets the scene for Michael's current direction—brooding, mature, reflective but not so downbeat as to disallow the good times." Entertainment Weekly gave it a C−, calling it a "dispirited, tortoise-paced ballad, which drags on for nearly seven minutes". The writer added that "there's only one retort—bring back Andrew Ridgeley!" Caroline Sullivan for The Guardian felt it is "the best thing on the album" and named it Single of the Week. She said, "The tune itself is a Michael ballad in excelsis. The likes of 'Careless Whisper' (1984) and 'A Different Corner' (1986) can now be seen as trial runs for this one, which incorporates every GM hallmark from anguished upward vocal inflections to tasteful acoustic guitar."
Swedish Göteborgsposten concluded that here, Michael "showed that he still mastered the craft." Jan DeKnock from Knight Ridder praised it as a "mesmerizing ballad" and a "stunning effort". Paul Lester from Melody Maker said it is "all bossa nova rhythms and Spanish guitar over which George softly whispers a requiem for his departed lover”.
Victoria Segal from NME viewed it as "irresistibly maudlin." In 2017, Dave Fawbert from ShortList named it "one of the most beautiful songs ever written". Eric Henderson from Slant Magazine wrote, "'Jesus to a Child' is among the most haunting of Michael's ballads, and one whose meaning could only fully emerge after his coming out. A slow-motion flamenco cry, written following the death of his lover, Anselmo Feleppa, 'Jesus to a Child' still remains supernaturally clear-eyed about what it means to love and to lose. "I've been loved so I know just what love is/And the lover that I kissed is always by my side/The lover I still miss was Jesus to a child".
On 8th January, it will be thirty years since Jesus to a Child was released. The first single from George Michael’s third studio album, Older, I think that we all need to give the album more of our attention and time. Jesus to a Child is one of Michael’s most beautiful and important songs. Considering its story, what Michael did with the profits from the song and how it has endured through the years, I have loved it since I first heard it in 1996. A typically astonishing song from a masterful artist…
WHO is very much missed.