Everything She Wants

Album: Make It Big (1984)
Charted: 2 1
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Songfacts®:

  • Like most Wham! songs, this was written by George Michael. He told ASCAP in Action in 1985: "It's the only song I've written that successfully came from a backing track first."

    He went on to explain that he wrote the drum pattern and found a synthesizer that he liked one night, and then the following morning he wrote the vocal part in his hotel room. "Because it was thrown together that way, I never looked at it as a single 'til everybody started saying it was great," said Michael.
  • Wham! was known for lightweight pop, but this song has a serious theme, which foreshadowed George Michael's solo work.

    He explained the meaning of the song to Dick Clark on his syndicated radio countdown show. Said Michael: "It's a lyric about a man who is six or eight months into a marriage which obviously isn't going well. He's faced with the 'happy' news of an arriving baby. So he's in that situation where he can't back out. (The song) talks about the situation (in which) many men find themselves, working really hard to support a family… and see it as a kind of trap. It's a situation I've seen. It's not the kind of thing I usually write about. Our lyrics are usually a lot closer to the kind of pop lightweight lyric we enjoy, but it's a departure, and I think it worked."
  • When this song topped the Hot 100, Wham! became the first group since the Bee Gees to have three #1 singles from the same album. "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Careless Whisper" were the previous chart-toppers from Make It Big.
  • While George Michael dismissed much of Wham's material once he began his solo career, he remained proud of this song. Along with "I'm Your Man," it was one of two songs from Wham's repertoire that he continued to perform on solo tours. He later referred to it as his favorite Wham! song. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Mitchell - Liverpool, UK
  • This was used in the 2020 miniseries I Know This Much Is True in the first episode "One." It also appeared in the TV shows Private Practice ("A Step Too Far" - 2011) and Everybody Hates Chris ("Everybody Hates Bad Boys" - 2008).

Comments: 1

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn May 11, 1985, a video of Wham!'s "Everything She Wants" was aired on the Dick Clark ABC-TV Saturday-afternoon program, 'American Bandstand'...
    At the time the song was at #8 on Billboard's Top 100 chart, two weeks later it would peak at #1 {for 2 weeks} and it spent a total of twenty weeks on the Top 100...
    It peaked at #2 in four countries; Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and their native England...
    Between 1983 and 1986 the British duo had nine records on the Top 100 chart, six made the Top 10 with three reaching #1, besides the above "Everything She Wants", their other two #1 records were "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" for 3 weeks on 1984 and "Careless Whisper"* for 3 weeks in 1985...
    And besides their three #1 records, the three other Top 10 records were "Freedom" {#3 in 1984}, "I'm Your Man" {#3 in 1985}, and "The Edge of Heaven" {#10 in 1986}...
    * For "Careless Whisper", the Columbia Record label read 'Wham! Featuring George Michael'.
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