Careless Whisper

"Careless Whisper" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter George Michael. Released as the second single from Wham!'s second studio album Make It Big (1984), it was written by Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, with Michael producing the song. Although the song was released as part of Make It Big, the single release is credited to either Wham! featuring George Michael (in the United States and several other countries) or solely to George Michael (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and some nations in Europe).
The song has been covered by several artists since its release, including Brian McKnight, Seether, Roger Williams, Kenny G and Julio Iglesias, among others. A contemporary pop song with R&B and soul influences, it features a prominent saxophone riff composed by Michael and played by Steve Gregory. It became a commercial success, topping record charts in at least ten countries and selling about 6 million copies worldwide—2 million of them in the United States. The song later achieved popularity on social media, mainly due to the saxophone riff being used in many movies and as a popular internet meme. With sales of over 11 million copies worldwide, it is one of the best selling songs of all time.
In 1981, Michael (age 18) was working as a DJ at the Bel Air Restaurant in Northwood, London, near Bushey, Hertfordshire. Michael explained in his autobiography, Bare, that he conceptualised "Careless Whisper" based on events from his childhood. Michael wrote, "I was on my way to DJ at the Bel Air when I wrote 'Careless Whisper'. I have always written on buses, trains and in cars. It always happens on journeys... With 'Careless Whisper' I remember exactly where it first came to me, where I came up with the sax line... I remember I was handing the money over to the guy on the bus and I got this line, the sax line... I wrote it totally in my head. I worked on it for about three months in my head." Sheet music for "Careless Whisper" sets the key of D minor.
"When I was twelve, thirteen, I used to have to chaperone my sister, who was two years older, to an ice rink at Queensway in London," he explained. "There was a girl there with long blonde hair whose name was Jane. I was a fat boy in glasses and I had a big crush on her—though I didn't stand a chance. My sister used to go and do what she wanted when we got to the skating rink and I would spend the afternoon swooning over this girl Jane."
"A few years later, when I was sixteen, I had my first relationship with a girl called Helen," Michael continued.
Michael observed that after he stopped wearing glasses, he began getting invited to parties. "And the girl who didn't even see me when I was twelve invited me in," he noted.
Andrew Ridgeley came up with the chord sequence on his Fender Telecaster he had received for his 18th birthday. They continued to work together on the music and lyrics both at Michael's house in Radlett, and Shirlie Holliman's aunt's basement flat in Peckham, where Ridgeley was living.
The original demo was recorded by local music producer Paul Mex on 18 January 1982 alongside "Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)" in the front room of Ridgeley's home (his parents' lounge turned into a makeshift studio) with Mex's TEAC 4-track Portastudio. Because most of the day was spent on "Wham Rap!" and Ridgeley's mother had returned home by that point, "Careless Whisper" had to be recorded in one take very quickly. It featured a Doctor Rhythm drum machine, an acoustic guitar (played by Ridgeley) and a bass guitar (played by Dave West), with Michael's vocal (recorded with a microphone attached to a broom handle). The overall cost of the recording was £20 (largely due to the rental cost of the Portastudio) and the duo landed a deal with Innervision by Mark Dean on the strength of the demos.
A more complete and fully realised second demo was recorded on 24 March 1982 at Halligan Band Centre, Holloway, London with a backing band and a saxophone riff. This second demo also included the songs "Club Tropicana" and "Wham Rap!". However, on the same day, Michael and Ridgeley were called over by Dean to sign a contract in addition to the record deal, which they did at a nearby greasy spoon café. Michael recalls of that day:
The song went through at least two rounds of production. The first was during a trip Michael made to Sheffield, Alabama, where he went to work with producer Jerry Wexler at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in 1983. Michael was unhappy with the original version produced by Wexler, and decided to re-record and produce the song himself; the second version was the one ultimately released as a single.
After the backing track and Michael's vocal had been recorded, Wexler had booked the top saxophone player from Los Angeles to fly in and do the solo. "He arrived at eleven and should have been gone by twelve", recalled Wham! manager Simon Napier-Bell. "Instead, after two hours, he was still there while everyone in the studio shuddered with embarrassment. He just couldn't play the opening riff the way George wanted it, the way it had been on the demo. But that had been made two years earlier by a friend of George's who lived round the corner and played sax for fun in the pub."
While the saxophonist appeared to be playing the part perfectly, Michael told him, "No, it's still not right, you see ..." and he would lower his head to the talkback microphone and patiently hum the part to him yet again. "It has to twitch upwards a little just there! See ...? And not too much."
Napier-Bell consulted with Wexler over Michael's dispute with the sax sound. "Is there really something George wants that's different from what the sax player is playing?" Napier-Bell asked. "Definitely!" replied Wexler.
The version Wexler produced was released later in the year, as a (4:41) B-side "special version" on 12″ in the UK and Japan.
The record label Innervision was going to put out the Wexler version of "Careless Whisper" after the "Club Fantastic Megamix" as early as 1983. Song publisher Dick Leahy said that while he could not stop the release of the "Club Fantastic Megamix", he could stop the release of "Careless Whisper" on the basis that as a publisher they "have the right to grant the first license of the recording of a tune of which he controls the copyright". He said: "We knew how big that song could be, so it was necessary to upset a few people to stop it." Towards the end of 1983, Michael was also committed to touring with Wham! to promote Fantastic, so according to him it would not have made sense to release "Careless Whisper" as a solo single in the middle of the tour, despite it being part of the setlist.
Michael later went back to London's Sarm West Studio 2 to re-record the track, the backbone of which was done with a live rhythm section in one take, with "loads of stuff bunged on [overdubbed] later" as Michael added, although the feel of it was basically live.
Michael elaborated on the song's production and how it turned out in the end:
After hiring and firing several other sax players, for which the BBC characterized as struggling to play all the notes with "the right amount of fluidity and still breathe," Michael eventually heard what he was looking for from Steve Gregory. During an interview with DJ Danny Sun, Gregory said he was the ninth saxophone player to attempt the riff. He said Michael's secretary had phoned him up midday and asked him to give the solo a try.
Gregory showed up to the studio around midnight to find Ray Warleigh, an experienced Australian session musician, waiting his turn to try his attempt at the solo. But Michael had left Warleigh waiting for him for so long that he had decided to give up his spot to Gregory. Gregory met with producer Chris Porter and listened to the earlier saxophone recording performed by Tom Scott on the Jerry Wexler production. After realizing he had some limitations in playing the notes written in the music (his saxophone was missing its highest note, an F-sharp), Gregory came up with a creative solution to record the song in a lower key and then raise the pitch in post-production.
The officially released single was issued in July 1984, entering the UK Singles Chart at number 12. Within two weeks it was at number one, ending a nine-week run at the top for "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It stayed at number one for three weeks, going on to become the fifth best-selling single of 1984 in the United Kingdom; outsold only by the two Frankie Goes to Hollywood tracks, "Two Tribes" and "Relax", Stevie Wonder with "I Just Called to Say I Love You", and Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?". The song also topped the charts in 25 other countries, including the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in February 1985 under the credit "Wham! featuring George Michael". Spending three weeks at the top in America, the song was later named Billboard's number-one song of 1985.
Despite its success, Michael stated repeatedly in interviews that he was not fond of the song. He said in 1991 that it "was not an integral part of my emotional development [...] it disappoints me that you can write a lyric very flippantly—and not a particularly good lyric—and it can mean so much to so many people. That's disillusioning for a writer."
"Careless Whisper" received mainly positive reception upon its release. Music critic Alexis Petridis of The Guardian ranked the song number five of George Michael's 30 greatest songs, stating, "it's a brilliant pop song regardless, and, in 'guilty feet have got no rhythm', it boasts one of the great once-heard-never-forgotten lyrics". Billboard referred to the track as a "polished-pop approach", stating, "[the] saxy ballad will tug at many a heartstring". Rolling Stone placed the song as George Michael's 2nd best song, describing it as "a soulful, saxophone-laden ballad" with "infidelity-themed lyrics".
Cash Box said the song illustrates Wham!'s "versatility and range" when compared to the previous single "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", calling this song "soft, beguiling and memorable" and saying that it features "a highly romantic instrumental arrangement as well as an extremely well-written melody and lyric". Amy Hanson of AllMusic described the song as "perfect for dance floor canoodling", stating, "built around a simmering Latin-lite tempo, sultry sax and Michael's own impassioned delivery, 'Careless Whisper' touched fans and passive listeners alike to become one of, if not the only, love songs of 1985".
The official music video (which uses the shorter single version instead of the full album version) was directed by Duncan Gibbins (who previously directed "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go") and shows the guilt felt by a man (portrayed by Michael) over an affair, and his acknowledgement that his partner (Lisa Stahl) is going to find out. Madeline Andrews-Hodge plays the woman who lures George away. It was filmed on location in Miami, Florida, in February 1984 and features such locales as Coconut Grove and Watson Island. The final part of the video shows Michael leaning out of a top floor balcony of Miami's Grove Towers.
A first original version of the video was edited with the Jerry Wexler 1983 version, and featured Ridgeley as a cameo, handing over a letter to a dark-haired Michael. This version had a more detailed storyline but was re-edited later.
According to producer Jon Roseman, production of the video was "a fucking disaster". According to Michael's co-star Lisa Stahl, "They lost footage of our kissing scene so we had to reshoot it, which I didn't complain about ... Then George decided he didn't like his hair so he flew his sister over from England to cut it and we had to reshoot more scenes."
As the band felt they had "screwed up" the video, further footage of Michael singing the song onstage was later shot at the Lyceum Theatre, London.
The video performance (1984 version) was officially uploaded to the George Michael YouTube channel on 24 October 2009. As of October 2024, the video had surpassed 1.3 billion views.
Credits adapted from the Extended Mix's liner notes.
In 1993, a dance version by English singer Sarah Washington peaked at number 45 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 20 on the Irish Singles Chart.
"Careless Whisper" has been covered by many other artists. Among the most notable versions are: