Though the original song’s lyrics seem to address a person vowing to take care of and protect a romantic partner, in the Faith: Legacy Edition album booklet, Michael discussed the production of the song and the transformative power of adding and subtracting different musical elements.
“It started off with a rhythm track with a snare, and when you play it like that it sounds a bit like Prince. I must have been listening to it without the snare and gone, ‘Oh my God, that totally changes the record!’ It suddenly becomes a gospel record,” he said of early versions of the song.
“A couple of things in my career have been a complete accident, where I stumbled upon the sound. I know when something resonates, and one of my saving graces is that I can hear something when I stumble upon it. I have the ability to stop and say: ‘No. Actually, that’s much better.’ It’s tiny little things like that that make a record, I think.”
To say that Swift has been heavily involved in the production and marketing of her own music is the understatement of the century. By nodding to Michael’s classic No. 1 hit, is she making a statement about power and musicality? Could the song be something of a spiritual sequel to “The Man,” in which she imagined how her actions would be viewed if she wasn’t a woman? Or, perhaps, the allusion is more to do with Babygirl director Halina Reijn’s interpretation of the song, as she explained to Indiewire. For her, the track is about the freedom that comes with an assurance of safety.
“We all, men, women, any human being, any person, has a young child inside of them that needs to be taken care of,” she said. “Whether we are 80 years old or 6 years old, it’s still there. And that is what it taps into for me.”
Whether Swift is positioning herself as the father or the fathered, her entry into the George Michael Extended Universe is sure to be a seismic one. Welcome to your Showgirl Era, Daddy.
Representatives for Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
