Everything She Wants

Like most other Wham! songs from this period, "Everything She Wants" was written by George Michael. He discussed the origin of the song in the fall 1985 issue of ASCAP in Action:

"It's the only song I've written that successfully came from a backing track first. I wrote the Linn drum pattern and found a synthesizer program I liked and wrote the backing track in one evening, took it back to the hotel, and wrote the vocal in a hotel room the next morning. Because it was thrown together that way, I never looked at it as a single 'til everybody started saying it was great."^[8]

Michael elaborated on the song's lyrics and the meaning behind them in Dick Clark's Countdown radio show:

"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."^[8]

In September 2011, during a performance at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany as part of the Symphonica Tour, Michael said that the song "Understand" featured on disc three of the compilation album Twenty Five (2006) was written as a follow-up to "Everything She Wants", with the man in the song realizing that his woman cared a lot more about love than he ever dreamed of.^[9]

"Everything She Wants" was recorded in August 1984 at Marcadet Studios in Paris using a 3M 32-track recorder, and was most likely finished off at Sarm West Studio 2 in London after most of the Make It Big album had been finished at Studio Miraval in southeastern France over a period of six weeks.^[3][10] The song was based around a mono 2-bar LinnDrum loop, originally intended as a guide but it was eventually kept on the finished record.^[11] Despite being credited as a Wham! track, it's also a departure in the sense that Michael recorded the track entirely by himself (with engineer Chris Porter in attendance), as opposed to the typical process of involving session musicians and Michael conveying his ideas to them. Apparently, the musicians involved in Make It Big had already flown back to the UK when Michael came around to recording the track en route from Studio Miraval, so it was partly out of necessity he worked on it himself. According to Porter, "I think this was when George started to realise that if he wanted to, he could do everything himself. He could cut out all these other people and their ideas." This would pave the way for "Last Christmas", which followed the same approach.^[12]

Michael confirms:

"For the most part I try and play everything [when writing and recording, but] it wasn't the case in Wham! Apart from [that] "Last Christmas" and "Everything She Wants" are all me."^[13]

He added that both songs were made on one synthesizer, referring to a Roland Juno-60.^[13][12]

Upon release in the UK, "Last Christmas" took the majority of the attention and airplay as it was appropriate in early December as Christmas approached. However, the presence of an equally-billed flip-side meant that radio stations had something else to play once "Last Christmas" had lost its seasonal topicality.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" by the Band Aid project, in which George Michael participated, prevented the double A-side from reaching number one in the UK singles chart (although in the process it became the biggest-selling record not to get to number one). In the US, however, "Everything She Wants" did reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 after being released in February 1985 accompanied by a music video.^[14]

The single reached No. 1 in May of that year, becoming the third consecutive chart-topping single from the Make It Big album.^[15]

Cash Box said that the song is a "probing R&B cut" that is "perfect dance floor material."^[16] In her review for AllMusic, Amy Hanson described "Everything She Wants" as "another glimpse of R&B driven, synth swept dance grooves" which brings in "elements of classic blue-eyed soul."^[17]

Although Michael bemoaned much of Wham!'s material as he began his solo career, "Everything She Wants" remained a song of which he was proud, and he continued to perform it in his shows. Furthermore, Michael remarked in an interview (to promote 25 Live tour) that "Everything She Wants" was his favourite Wham! song.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, the song was performed at the MTV Unplugged concert.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, the song was remixed and re-released as "Everything She Wants '97" on the greatest hits album The Best of Wham!: If You Were There....^[18]

"Everything She Wants" was featured on the official soundtrack album to Last Christmas released by Sony Music on CD, 2-disc vinyl, and digital formats on 8 November 2019.^[19]

Rapper Foxy Brown sampled the song on the track "I Can't" from her 1999 album Chyna Doll.^{[20][better source needed]}

The a cappella group Naturally 7 sampled "Everything She Wants" on their 2011 song "Life Goes On", an arrangement that was personally approved by Michael.^[21]

In 2020, Alien Ant Farm recorded a rock remake of the song. Its music video, shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, features cameos from artists like Insane Clown Posse, Hyro the Hero, Charlie Benante of Anthrax, CJ Pierce of Drowning Pool, and several others.^[22]

The official music video for "Everything She Wants" was directed by Andy Morahan,^[23] and consists of black and white footage of a live performance. The video also includes an extra verse not present on the Make It Big album.

• George Michael – lead and backing vocals, Roland Juno-60 synthesizer, LinnDrum programming
• Andrew Ridgeley – backing vocals

• Also released in a limited edition with a 1985 calendar (WQTA 4949).

• Note: Track 1 plays the 7″ remix but is labelled only as "Remix".