Freedom '90

The Leather Jacket 🎤

What George Michael Burned and Why It Had to Go | Freedom '90 by George Michael

There is a scene in the music video for “Freedom '90” that I think about sometimes. George Michael burned the leather jacket. The one from the “Faith” video. The one that had been on magazine covers and posters and in the imaginations of a generation of fans. He put it in a room with a jukebox and he burned it.

He also did not appear in the video. The song about reclaiming his own identity features his face exactly nowhere.

I find that choice interesting. Choosing not to show yourself, even as you are asserting your right to be yourself, in a space where the expectation is that you will show yourself. There is something honest in that contradiction.

The Cost Accounting

“I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy.” That line is not a boast. It is a cost accounting. This is what I became. This is what people wanted from me. This is the version of myself I learned to perform because it worked, because people loved it, because it got me here. The performance was real in the sense that he delivered it. It was not real in the sense that it was him.

I know something about that gap. Not at his scale, obviously. I am not George Michael, much to my family's ongoing relief given the quality of my guitar playing. The gap between the version of yourself you perform and the version you actually are, though, that is not a celebrity problem. That is a human problem.

I spent years performing Blake. The version that was easy to be around, that kept things light, that did not make too much of the hard parts. The extrovert who shows up fully and brings energy to a room. That version is real. It is also incomplete. The performance leaves out the parts people didn't see, conversations with myself that Donna never heard, the parenting moments where I was present in body and absent in everything that matters, the years when the inside and the outside did not match.

Faith in the Sound

The song's key line for me is this: “I've gotta have some faith in the sound.” Not faith in the image. Not faith in what other people think. Faith in the sound, which is the internal thing, the voice that is yours before the performance begins.

George Michael has said that this song was about more than his pop image. He was living a double life at the time, in ways that cost him enormously. The full weight of “take these lies and make them true somehow” is heavier when you understand what the lies were. He was not just shedding a leather jacket. He was trying to find his way toward something true in a world that was not ready to let him be true.

He died on Christmas Day in 2016. He was fifty-three. He had been publicly himself for the last part of his life, and the music he made after the hardest years was some of the best of his career. The faith in the sound turned out to be justified.

The Choice You Make Again and Again

What this song keeps offering me is the reminder that authenticity is not a moment. It is a practice. You do not burn the jacket once and arrive somewhere permanent. You choose, again and again, to be the version of yourself that is true over the version that is comfortable or expected or easier for other people to receive.

The blog is that choice for me. Putting the real story on the internet, with my name on it, is not a small thing. It costs something. It is also the truest thing I have done in years.

Have faith in your sound. It is worth more than any jacket.

Take gentle care of yourselves and of each other.

Keep going,

Blake

Disclaimer: While music can be a powerful tool for emotional well-being, it is not a substitute for professional mental health support. The information in this blog is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. I am not a trained mental health expert. If you are struggling, please reach out to a qualified therapist or counselor. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. You can also contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.