Just heard the sad news of the passing of pop superstar Georgios Panayiotou (George Michael). My thoughts immediately turned to his song "Faith," as I had listened to the song earlier this week while doing some editing for the year 1988 in my collection of lyrics from Billboard's year-end Top Ten charts (1951-2015). "Faith" finished that year as the number one song.

An analysis of the word faith in the collection revealed that, including Michael's song, there were nine songs in which the word appeared. Besides "Faith," these were (in chronological order) "Hello, Dolly"; "I'll Be There"; "American Pie"; "On My Own"; "All for Love"; "Waterfalls"; "Because You Loved Me"; and "Love Story."

And because this post is really about George Michael, rather then the word faith, here are three other videos featuring Michael: the first, another #1 year-end song for Michael as a solo act; the second, with his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley as the duo Wham; and the third, a song he had much to do with and, like the preceding song, one with particular relevance today.

R.I.P.

Donate