George
Michael talks of his support for Amy Winehouse
28 September
2007 - In a frank and revealing interview on BBC Radio 4's
Desert Island Discs, George Michael talks of his support for Amy
Winehouse.
Speaking to
presenter Kirsty Young, George Michael describes Amy Winehouse
as "the best female vocalist I've heard in my entire career"
and says "we should support her".
He also
expresses his gratitude to his fans for their support during a
"bizarre year" and reveals that he has a propensity
for guilt and was a budding entomologist as a young boy.
And George
Michael talks about his theory that a bump on his head when he
was eight years old might have been responsible for his interest
in music.
On Amy
Winehouse: "This is the best female vocalist I've heard in
my entire career and one of the best writers, so all I can say
is, 'Please, please understand how brilliant you are', and I
wish her every success in the future and I know she can get past
the media, I don't know if she can get past other things but
she's a fantastic talent and we should support her."
On the past
year and his fans: "It's been a very bizarre year because
you can't imagine what it's like playing to people who have been
loyal to you for 25 years and haven't seen you for 15, that's
been the most life-affirming thing I could have done.
I'm so glad
I did it [went on tour]."
"It's
not the adulation that's been nice, it's the absolute warmth,
it's the complete generosity. I genuinely believe the purpose of
what I do is a positive one.
I really do
genuinely believe that most of my songs are life-affirming in
some way.
"And
actually people who don't care about your music, thinking lots
of things about you that aren't true, it really doesn't matter.
And what's wonderful is that a lot of them who think they are
true, really don't care, so I'm such a lucky man.
"It's
so annoying people trying to give the impression the world is a
totally screwed up place and I really needed those people in
front of me night after night to tell me that it wasn't. I
really needed it so badly, I'm so grateful to them."
On insect
collecting: "At the age of about eight I had a head injury
and I know it sounds bizarre and unlikely, but it was quite a
bad bang, and I had it stitched up and stuff, but all my
interests changed, everything changed in six months.
"I had
been obsessed with insects and creepy crawlies, I used to get up
at five o'clock in the morning and go out into this field behind
our garden and collect insects before everyone else got up and,
suddenly, all I wanted to know about was music, it just seemed a
very, very strange thing.
"And I
have a theory that maybe it was something to do with this
accident, this whole left-brain right-brain thing. Nobody in my
family seemed to notice but I became absolutely obsessed with
music and everything changed after that."
Desert
Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, Sunday 30 September 2007, 11.15am;
repeated Friday 5 October, 9.02am
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